COUNCIL tax bills in Tavistock look set to rise next year with the town council proposing a precept of £193,000.

Councillors will vote at next Tuesday?s full council meeting on the recommendation to levy a precept of £193,000 for the financial year 2003/2004, a rise of £18,000 from the previous year.

Cllr Norma Woodcock said an 11 or 12 per cent rise in the precept represented a ?reasonable way forward? for the council.

?We should be quite comfortable with the precept at £193,000,? Cllr Woodcock told a meeting of the finance committee on Tuesday.

Cllr Woodcock said councillors had considered the proposed budget line by line.

?I can honestly say we scrutinised every point of this budget, but it does mean some hard decisions have to be made by the council.?

Cllr Woodcock said where cuts had been identified they had been ?rigorously implemented? to keep the precept down as much as possible.

Cllr Woodcock had chaired the forward planning, policy and programme sub-committee which had found £48,000 of savings including reduced spending on paths maintenance, play park equipment and project matched funding.

Cllr Roger Mathew said he wished to see the precept rise by no more than 10 per cent each year, but was prepared to support the motion.

?I would like to have pulled it down a bit further,? he said. ?I am contented, if slightly uneasy, that at £193,000, we have a defensible precept,? added Cllr Mathew.

Cllr David Stapleton was opposed to spending £90,000 in the budget on work on the council?s Drake Road offices.

?I feel the expenditure should be reduced or spread over three years, then some of the other reductions in community spending could be reversed or the precept lowered.

Cllr Stapleton said there was ?too much sentiment? attached to the Drake Road offices by some members of the council.

?If they insist on keeping the building, let?s use the part of the building that isn?t going to cost very much to repair and maintain, and phase it to give the new council a chance to look at it afresh,? he said.

?We can use the money proposed for the Drake Road office to better effect or to reduce the precept,? said Cllr Stapleton.

The proposed precept level will have to be agreed by full council next Tuesday (December 3).

The precept issued by the town council makes up only a small part of the bill issued by West Devon Borough Council.

Last year, a band D property in Tavistock payed a council tax total of £1,108.10, of which £43.66 went to the town council to pay for services which it provides.