CONCERN over high council tax bills in West Devon has prompted the borough council to write to the Prime Minister.

At the present time residents in the borough are forced to make up for the shortfall in Government grant to fund local services through council tax.

Now the borough council is calling on the Government to ?change the balance of funding with a new system for funding local services so that the shortfall in central Government grant does not result in disproportionate rises in local council tax.?

The motion was brought to the full council meeting last week by Cllr Pam Scannell who said: ?We live in an area of low wages, high house prices and high council tax and we need to take notice of the unrest that surrounds this issue.?

She said a 1% shortfall in Government grant required, on average, a 4% increase in council tax or an equivalent cut in services.

Cllr Jane Waterhouse said the current council tax was a ?regressive tax? which increasingly diminished the incomes of those who were least able to pay, such as pensioners and young couples with children, and had the least negligible effect on the those most able to pay.

?The increase in the state pension is a fraction of the increase in council tax. I am one of the lucky ones and can afford it, but pensioners on a fixed income are just not able to.

?There have to be changes which take affordability into consideration.?

But Cllr Roger Mathew was against the motion. He said it was a national issue and the impact of a change in West Devon was likely to be less favourable to people in the borough than in other parts of the country.

?Council tax is high in West Devon because so few people live here,? he said. ?The only way to get it down is to encourage massive development and migration.?

Cllr Ted Sherrell said there would always be shortfalls as long as the borough was shortchanged by the Government; no system could be fair unless there was more money forthcoming.

But Cllr Alison Clish-Green said it was important to start ?banging on the drum? now to get something done.

She said MPs and wealthy people living in London were paying less in council tax than many pensioners living in West Devon.