The trust behind plans to build a bandstand in Ilkley could escape a £10,000 tax bill after an MP asked Customs and Excise to change its tune.

Meanwhile, officials revealed today that the Victorian-style traditional bandstand on The Grove should be ready to host concerts by mid-summer.

The Rotary Club of Ilkley and Ilkley Wharfedale Rotary Club teamed up to help form a charitable trust and launch a fundraising drive after deciding to build a bandstand and garden for future generations as a millennium project.

So far more than £40,000 has been raised - mainly through donations from firms and local residents - towards the £72,000 target with work set to start at the beginning of next month.

But the Ilkley Bandstand 2000 Trust, which includes representatives of both Rotary clubs as well as other local organisations, received a blow when it was revealed that more than £10,000-worth of donations could end up in the Treasury's coffers after a bid to exempt the project from VAT was initially rejected.

Retired quantity surveyor Michael Braithwaite - a Rotarian and member of the joint committee set up to organise the project - asked Ilkley MP Ann Cryer to intervene after Customs and Excise said the project would be liable for VAT as it did not consider the bandstand qualified as a building.

Mrs Cryer raised the issue in the House of Commons and Paymaster General Dawn Primarolo MP pledged to investigate.

Now she has written to Mrs Cryer, saying that "on the balance of probabilities" Customs was now prepared to accept that the bandstand would be a building and could qualify for a zero VAT rate as long as it was only used either by a charity for non-business purposes or as a "village hall'', providing social or recreational facilities for the local community.

Customs and Excise has asked for further details about the project, which Mr Braithwaite is now preparing.

He said: "I asked for our MP to help because to me it seemed morally wrong that all this money we're collecting from people to provide something for the community's benefit should be subject to VAT. The Paymaster General's reply is extremely encouraging and we'd express our thanks to Mrs Cryer for all she's done to help.''

Mr Braithwaite said a series of events - including a concert by the Black Dyke Mills Band at King's Hall on June 1 and a golf tournament in Ilkley in May - was being organised to meet the fundraising target.

As well as regular concerts it is hoped the bandstand - to be built on land opposite Betty's and in front of the former Grove Convalescent Hospital after being dedicated for public use by its owner the Abbeyfield Society of Ilkley - will also accommodate events such as art exhibitions staged by various community organisations.

Mr Braithwaite said: "We're hoping it's going to be a focal point."

Anyone wanting to make a donation towards the bandstand should send it to Rotarian Barry Bedford c/o Northern Counties Insurance, 11 The Moors Centre, Ilkley, LS2 9LB.