Tax trebles in town's cash crisis

The gym is now being run by Harleston Town Council adding to its costs

People living in a small town in Norfolk will have to pay more council tax because their local administration has trebled the amount it charges them.

Harleston Town Council in South Norfolk is raising its precept from £60 to £184 a year for an average band D property.

Town council chairman Sue Kuzmic, who took over in May, said the council had inherited the financial crisis.

The town clerk Brian Harding is on sick leave and under a mutual agreement he will leave and be replaced.

Build up reserves

South Norfolk District Council has made a £40,000 loan to Harleston as a short term measure and the town council will raise £295,000 through trebling its precept.

Mrs Kuzmic said: "To obtain that money from South Norfolk we have to have a policy of how we're going to actively build up the reserves over the next three years.

"There may be a chance next year when we look at the budget that we may be able to bring the precept down.

"We're not ruling that out but I don't want to make any promises I can't keep and I can't deliver."

The rescue package was voted in unanimously after it was revealed that the council would be £65,000 in debt if it did nothing and carried on spending at the same rate.

The council partly blames the financial crisis on the failure to increase the precept in line with inflation and the cost of several large projects like a leisure centre, a new cemetery and the provision of free parking in the town.