FUNDING to support Stourport Community Centre has been pledged by the local council Conservatives.

More than £46,000 has been allocated to support the centre by the Wyre Forest Tories who have also moved to quell fears over the future of Bewdley Museum after putting forward a budget which guarantees it funding for the next three years.

The Tory budget - which needs to be approved by full district council next month - pledges £362,460 to the Load Street attraction from 2005 to 2008.

Supporters of the museum said last year's budget - put forward by the Health Concern party - left a question mark over its future after years of uncertainty.

The Conservatives seized control of the council after last June's elections.

Council leader and member of the museum management committee, Stephen Clee, said the museum was doomed to close on March 31 unless the cash was pledged.

He said: "We, as an administration, have had to find the funds That meant some projects we may have wanted to speed up in this year have had to be to put on the back burner."

Health Concern plans

Health Concern put in cash for the year from last April, but insisted more money would be forthcoming if outside funding was not found.

Another £46,000 is in line to improve and modernise the changing rooms at White Wickets sports ground in Franche Road, Kidderminster.

Improving the look of the district is a key theme for the budget. It proposes spending more than £12,000 a year on spring flower bedding and to employ three more street cleaning staff for six months during the summer.

A total of £20,000 is down to be spent on improving district car parks while funding has also been ear marked for the council's mobile skate park, the "fun box".

Locating all council offices on one site is also back on the agenda. A figure of £45,000 has been set aside for consultants to draw up plans.

Proposals to bring in money as well as spend it include increasing cemetery charges by 18 per cent. This puts up burial charges for adults to £240 from £204.

Car parking charges will go up by seven per cent after two years without an increase.