Cornwall Council has said its 2017/18 budget will protect frontline services from the impact of continuing government cuts while providing an additional £13m for supporting vulnerable adults, investing £770m in infrastructure and making £33m in cuts.

Introducing the budget on Tuesday, council leader John Pollard said: “This is a positive plan which focuses on opportunity, long term investment and supports our aims of improving outcomes for people, places and prosperity across Cornwall.

“The success of our financial planning over the past few years and the opportunities provided by our devolution deal to have a greater say in how public sector monies are spent in Cornwall means we are in a much stronger position than many other authorities to deliver a budget which gets the balance right between protecting essential services and increasing council tax levels, and investing in our future."

One of the most significant spending pressures facing the council this year is in adult social care, with 27 per cent of the budget spent on adult social care, which will gain an extra £5.2m next year from an approved two per cent levy, as part of an extra £13m investment by the council.

Added to future planned social care spending increases, the council will be spending £146m - or 16 per cent more - on adult social care by 2019/2020.

The budget also includes the decision to freeze car parking fees for the coming financial year, while the next council will look at the wider issue of car parking revenue.

The council will invest £770m in capital schemes over the next five years, including £143m for housing with £49 million for affordable homes, £150m on maintaining Cornwall’s roads and £101m on improving road and rail links and public transport, while £27m be spent on new fire and rescue vehicles and equipment.

The budget also includes the £32.745m police precept for Cornwall, which represents a band D charge of £176.28, up a 1.99 per cent which is just below the two per cent threshold for a referendum.

The budget also reflects the changes arising from the introduction of the rural 100 per cent business rate retention pilot. This will see the council retaining 100% of local business rates from next year, equivalent to around £79m in 2017/2018.

As a result of this change the council will no longer receive an equivalent £79m in grants from the government, including the Revenue Support Grant, Rural Services Delivery Grant and Highways Maintenance capital grants but it will future any growth on future business rates, and can decide how to spend its funding on road maintenance schemes rather than be restrained by central government.

The council still has to implement £33m in savings for the coming financial year, and documents accompanying the budget state that it will "implement a planned programme of efficiencies, commercialisation, cuts and service transformation to achieve savings."

These include efficiencies of £4.7m on adult social services, £5m on children and family services, £300,000 on education and early years, £700,000 on wellbeing and public health, £2.4million on neighbourhood and public protection and £700,000 on environment.

Adam Paynter, the council’s cabinet member for resources, added: “Growing Cornwall’s economy has become even more important following the results of the EU Referendum. We want to work with partners to support existing businesses to grow and encourage entrepreneurs to set up new ventures and to help our town centres to thrive by improving public transport and addressing parking issues. "We want Cornwall to be a place of high aspirations and will be working with education providers and businesses to support people back into work and ensure that our young people have the best possible start in life, with access to high quality skills and training and apprenticeships."