The leader of Bromley Council has slammed the way Government funds London boroughs - saying services and bills would be lower if Bromley had a similar budget to Lewisham.

This comes after Bromley bill payers were hit with a council tax hike of 4.2 per cent.

Bromley Council leader Colin Smith admitted that this extra £58.67 a year for average Band D homes was “more than anyone would prefer”.

But he said the council was left with no choice because of the disparity in funding between inner and outer London.

He called the perceived financial disparity as “plain wrong and unfair”.

Cllr Smith used Lewisham Council as an example of the perceived inequality.

He told News Shopper: “Lewisham received a funding assessment for 2017/18 of £135 million compared with £46.8 million for Bromley.

“If Bromley received the same level of funding per capita as Lewisham, Bromley would receive a settlement funding assessment of £146.8 million, a difference of an extra £100 million.

“Obviously some of that extra money would be spent improving key local services, but just to illustrate the point, if that additional funding was available and was used solely to reduce council tax the new council tax level in Bromley for 2017/18 would have been £332.19 compared to the £1114.02 it stands at today. A reduction of £781.83 or 70 per cent.

“How can that be considered to be right, fair or sustainable and indeed, what on earth are Lewisham spending all that extra money on?”

In response, Mayor of Lewisham Steve Bullock claimed Conservative austerity has resulted in high levels of poverty and deprivation.

He told News Shopper: "By 2020 government funding to our budgets will have been cut by 63 per cent. Despite this, we will continue as a Labour Council to protect our most vulnerable residents from the damaging effect of these savage Tory cuts.

"In 2015 - Lewisham was the 48th most deprived Borough in England while Bromley was 208th.

"Lewisham has accepted more families as homeless than Bromley yet that borough offers temporary accommodation within Bromley to less than half of them.

"54 per cent of families accepted as homeless in Bromley are moved outside the Borough - in Lewisham the figure is 23 per cent.

"Bromley has many more higher valued properties than Lewisham and is thus able to raise significantly more money from a given level of Council Tax.”