BRIDPORT: Town councillors are being asked to set their council tax bill – without knowing if they’ll be forced to hold a referendum if they want to increase it by more than two per cent.

They have been left between a ‘rock and a hard place’, they say.

If they want to produce a balanced budget without having to find thousands in savings they will need to increase the precept by for a Band D property by 4.32 per cent.

But if the government decides town councils should be ‘capped’ and forced to hold a referendum if their bills go up by more than two per cent – at a cost of between £8,000 and £13,000 – they could face losing the vote, footing the bill and still not balancing the books.

At Wednesday’s night’s meeting of the finance and general purposes committee members were split between those not wanting to be held to ransom and those not wanting to take the risk.

Town clerk Bob Gillis said the trouble was there was no certainty about whether there would have to be a referendum and the government was not going to make an announcement until February – past the date when the council’s precept decision has to be made.

Cllr Dave Rickard, among others, said it was a disgraceful situation: “It is totally unreasonable to hold us to ransom. We are being made to jump through hoops but they haven’t even put the hoops up yet.”

Cllr David Tett said he would support the option to increase the precept by 4.32 per cent – the equivalent of £6.99 a year or 13p a week.

He said the council should balance its books so it could provide the work and services it wants.

Mayor Cllr Maggie Ray said: “We are between a rock and a hard place.”

She said it would be reckless to risk a referendum and the prudent option would be to choose the option that would increase the precept by 1.95 per cent.

Councillors were asked to choose between three options – no increase, which would leave a £20,434 deficit in the budget, a 1.95 per cent increase which would leave a £11,222 shortfall and the 4.32 per cent which would balance the books.

Councillors also heard they had reserves of £587,340 but with around £100,000 of that earmarked for projects, including the Literary and Scientific Institute refurbishment and the museum remodelling, as well as the likelihood of having to take on more services and responsibilities at a time when the amount of count tax support grant was going down.

Mr Gillis said he was hoping for more information about the referendum by next week’s full town council meeting.

Meanwhile councillors narrowly voted to go for option three with its 4.32 per cent increase.

Councillors will discuss the recommendation on Tuesday.