TOWN councillors in Peterlee have decided to increase their parish precept by 7.7 per cent - making their share of council tax rates among the highest in the country.

The move has provoked a storm of protest from independent members of the Labour-led council who called for a trates freeze.

Councillor Andrew Watson of the Free And Independent Representation (FAIR) Party said: “We are the most expensive parish council in England, if not the country – and that for one of the most deprived areas of the country.

“We continue to put up the parish precept year on year, when people are struggling for food.”

The increase, if implemented, will mean the town council's share of the council tax bill for the average band D house in Peterlee will increase from £276 to £298, when the national average for a parish bill is £60.

Council leader Bill Jeffrey said: “Our money from the county council is being reduced every year and it will keep on reducing. If we want to keep the services going we need to look at that.”

He added: “If we wanted to keep to a zero increase then we would need to find about £87,000.

“We don’t want to be making people redundant. We have already had the big shock in Peterlee with Tesco pulling out of building a superstore where they were going to create 400 jobs.

“We don’t want to be adding to that if we could help it. We will be looking very closely where any reductions can be made.”

Cllr Jeffrey added the council was awaiting for a Government decision on whether or not to cap parish council precepts.

He said: “We won’t know that until February, which means we cannot go anywhere until then.”

The Government decision could result in a cap on parish precepts of about 2 per cent.

But Cllr Watson said: “We were told £87,000 would need to be found to balance the budget and maintain services.

“But I believe we could make cuts without losing services. We have £1.1m in reserves in the bank

“My argument is that we should use £57,000 from our reserves and make £30,000 in cuts, which I believe we can do with just tightening our belts – by renewing our contracts for phones and things like that.

“We spend up to £50,000 on civic mayor. I have nothing against the mayor, as he does a fantastic job, putting Peterlee on the map, but we have to look again at how much it is costing.”