VILLAGERS at Barton, near Richmond, face an extra £50 on their household council tax bills to cover the parish council's legal bill following a long-running row over allotments.

The parish council has said it must raise its precept for 2003-4 to £20,000, four times that normally set by the authority.

That means each of the 370 households in Barton and the nearby hamlet of Newton Morrell will see their bills rise by about £50 from April.

The parish council said the huge hike was needed to cover the cost of lawyers who represented the authority at a public inquiry.

The council terminated its lease of the village allotments in 1999 when members deemed them too costly and used by too few people.

Gardeners were furious and argued that the authority had a duty to provide them with allotments.

A full-blown row ensued and the parish council was threatened with a judicial review. Some of its senior members resigned and were replaced by allotment holders, who reversed the organisation's stand on the issue.

However, landowner Edward Hall had already begun to look at other uses for the allotments site and, in spite of a compulsory purchase order issued by Richmondshire District Council, refused to sell.

The matter is now likely to be decided by the Deputy Prime Minister's office.

Parish Coun Alen McFadzean said it was regrettable that villagers had to foot the legal costs but an increase in the precept was the cheapest way to cover the cost.

If the matter was eventually settled in the council's favour, it was likely that no precept would have to be raised in 2004-5.

"The main point is that we have a statutory obligation to the allotment holders and there is no way we can fail to provide them with plots without being taken to court by the National Association of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners," he said.

Former parish council chairman, Coun Campbell Dawson, said the authority had missed a chance to settle out of court.

"The landowner offered half the land as a compromise but they didn't want that," he said. "Now this could be just the first of a number of big bills, especially if the parish council has to buy the land from Mr Hall or pay his court costs."

Mr Hall did not wish to comment on the row but was sorry the village had been drawn into a dispute that was not of his making.