COUNCIL chiefs have been accused of playing Russian roulette with taxpayers' money after being ordered to lower its cash demands from the public.

Hambleton District Council was left reeling last week after the Government stepped in and announced it was capping the Tory-led authority.

Earlier this year, the authority agreed to increase its council tax by 17.6 per cent, even though the Government had said it would consider capping authorities with rises of more than five per cent.

For an average Band D property, that equated to about £12 and was the third lowest in the entire country.

But last week, the authority was told it was one of eight in the country to be capped to "protect council taxpayers against excessive increases".

It means Hambleton will have to send new bills to each of its 38,000 households with the lower level of council tax - a process that it claims is likely to cost the authority more than £50,000.

The move was immediately condemned by council leader Arthur Barker as defying common sense and destroying "sound financial management built up over many years".

But yesterday, an opposition member of the authority claimed the council had acted irresponsibly in setting its original budget and was "playing Russian roulette" with public money.

Stokesley Liberal Democrat Caroline Seymour said: "I don't agree with the Government's policy on capping, but the Tories running the district council really should have seen this coming.

"It was clear that they would be capped if they insisted on such a large increase.

"Now the residents of Hambleton will have to pay for the re-billing."

She added: "They are the losers. They not only have to bear the cost of re-billing, but also suffer cuts to services.

"I hope that the cuts will not affect frontline services. It is an extraordinary waste of our money."

Capping will mean a loss of £196,000 which will have to be found from existing and planned-for services.