More than £20,000 of new vinyl flooring will be laid at County Hall.

Hertfordshire County Council will splash out £20,700 on new flooring for a corridor at its Hertford headquarters.

It comes a week after the authority announced council tax will rise 1.99 percent to help plug the deficit and pay for infrastructure upgrades and key services – some of which are facing cuts.

The opposition Liberal Democrat group has accused the Conservative-led authority of getting its priorities wrong.

Councillor Stephen Giles-Medhurst said: “After putting council tax up almost two percent the Tories want to spend money on new carpets.

“Clearly someone has not got their priorities right - it seems quite expensive.”

Vinyl flooring will be installed in 131 square-metres of corridor at County Hall.

The council said it is required to maintain its public buildings for safety reasons, with the existing surface deemed to be a hazard.

In a statement, the council said: “The corridor is a major link between the old and new parts of the building and is used on a daily basis by as many as 2000 staff, visitors and members of the public.

“The existing surface, which has been in place since 1973, is beginning to break up and could become a hazard.

“The cost of the work covers the removal of the existing vinyl, making good the surface below and replacing this 131 square-metre area with a suitable hardwearing surface.”

In a memo to members, Kate Lowen, senior support officer to Cabinet and the Conservatives, said the new flooring in the "cold corridor" was “good value” and would “brighten up and suppress noise in a main thoroughfare.”

The note goes on to state a “clean finish can no longer be achieved” on the current flooring due to water damage, before adding "the surface can also be slippery”.