9:26am Friday 5th February 2010
By Miran Rahman
Keighley’s town council last night agreed to a 3.4 per cent rise in its precept for the coming financial year.
The budget was voted on after heated exchanges between some councillors, during which town mayor Councillor Margaret Ward repeatedly warned her colleagues to moderate their language.
Only 19 councillors were present at the meeting, as nine were absent and two seats on the town council are currently vacant.
Finance committee chairman Cllr John Philip proposed the 3.4 per cent increase. He said this would only have been 0.4 per cent if next week's Riddlesden and Stockbridge by-election - forecast to cost the council £10,000 - had been avoided through co-opting a new member.
Cllr Philip claimed the expensive by-election had been deliberately engineered by “our usual small band of quisling town councillors”.
But Cllr David Samuels said his argument was “outrageous”.
In the subsequent vote, 13 councillors supported the precept rise. Four voted against and two abstained.
The 3.4 per cent increase will see the town council levy a total precept of £386,250 for 2010/11. This amounts to a charge of £24.30 on properties in the benchmark band D category.
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