A BID to reduce council tax bills by up to £31 in West Devon this year failed on Tuesday when a proposal by West Devon Borough Council's Liberal Democrat Group to tap into the authority's reserve funds was thrown out.

Leader of the Lib Dem group Cllr Nicholas Waterhouse said the budget proposal to transfer £400,000 from the council's reserves into a current account to reduce the coming year's council tax, would enable the tax to be kept at the rate of inflation without further cuts in services.

Speaking at a meeting of the borough council on Tuesday, Mr Waterhouse described it as a 'rescue' operation to relieve the impact of the 'huge' Tavistock town precept. This had increased four-fold because of fees the authority had incurred over legal action concerned with the renovation of town council properties in the early 1990s — money which it hoped to recoup from a predicted successful litigation.

The proposal was also to avoid a 'massive and unrecoverable' fine of £83,504 to Central Government due to the high council tax demand which would inevitably be paid by the taxpayer, he said.

Ratepayers face an eight per cent rise in the borough's tax demand this year as opposed to last year's 2.75 per cent.

The restoration of the balances would be the first charge on the budget for the following year whether or not the difficulties arising from Tavistock Town Council has been satisfactorily resolved, said Mr Waterhouse.

But some councillors said the move was 'a gamble' and coming at the last hour they had not had the chance to investigate the proposals thoroughly.

Conservative Cllr Richard Eberlie said the council's reserves must be kept for the proverbial rainy day and especially for unforeseen litigation.

A Band D tax payer will pay £117.96 this year for the services provided by West Devon. If accepted, the Lib Dems proposal would have brought the payment down to £85.30. The proposal was lost by 18 votes to nine.