LEGAL negotiations are still continuing in the long-drawn out arbitration case involving Tavistock Town Council.
Members were briefed by solicitors at a confidential meeting behind closed doors on Tuesday night.
Mayor of Tavistock Cllr Roger Mathew said: 'Matters are still on-going — I simply can't give any more information than that.'
Cllr Mathew said to comment further could prejudice the council's case.
'We can only do what the process allows us to do and in so doing we are in effect protecting the tax payers' position.
'Compromising things and unauthorised disclosures are not in the tax payers' interest,' he said.
Councillors appeared before the arbitrator in London for the first time last month, two-and-a-half years after the case began.
Town clerk Roger Howard said the arbitrator has laid out a time-table of events and matters were proceeding according to that schedule.
The case involves repair work to buildings owned by the town council in the early 1990s.
The spiralling costs of the case meant the town council was forced to increase its precept by almost 400 per cent this year.
The massive rise was to help pay legal fees, reduce the council's overdraft and build up reserves once more.
But the rise had a knock-on effect for West Devon Borough Council — it meant its own rate was pushed up which lost the authority subsidies under the government's claw-back scheme.