HOLSWORTHY Town Council has agreed to lower its council tax sights for the year 2012/2013.

The precept has been reconsidered and there will be a 6.2 per cent increase rather than 100 per cent as previously proposed.

Councillors discussed and praised a report put together by Cllr Martin Prentice at an extraordinary meeting held on Tuesday, February 21.

It was established why the increase had been applied to start with and it was suggested that a Reserves and Balance Policy be adapted to avoid any further discrepancies.

Cllr Jon Hutchings said there had been "bad vibes" about the increase of the precept.

He said: "I don't believe anyone around this table was 100 per cent clear on why the precept was to be raised, apart from the councillor setting the budget. We can all be baffled by numbers!"

In order to erase doubts and to clarify the proposal, a meeting was held with Cllr Prentice, Cllr Hutchings, Cllr John Allen, Cllr Ken Watson and former councillor and responsible financial officer David Smith.

Following the meeting, Jon said: "It was now clear that the reason for the increase was to replace reserves that had been spent in this financial year or earmarked by the previous council and not included in this year's budget.

"We looked at the forthcoming year's budget and agreed that there would be enough reserves and under spend from this financial year to be able to make less of an increase in next year's budget. This is information that was not available last October when the budget was being looked at."

For the full report, and a round up of the area news and sport, please pick up this week's edition of the 'Post'.