A CRITIC of Ilkley Parish Council's finances has started a campaign to have the authority disbanded after councillors agreed a 55 per cent increase in its charge on Ilkley households.

The parish council last week agreed to raise a total of £99,075 from Ilkley households in the coming financial year - amounting to around £15 per year, a 55 per cent increase, for the 'average' Band D valued property.

Although one councillor urged Ilkley people to keep the 29p per week cost in perspective, a past critic of the parish council's finances is petitioning Bradford Council to disband Ilkley's council as part of the Parish Review.

Andrew Dundas, of Parish Ghyll Drive, is drawing up a petition calling for Bradford Council to revert to its original Parish Review proposals of disbanding Ilkley Parish and creating three new parishes. Mr Dundas wants to see the same parish precept rate set for all three communities by Bradford Council, using up the 'surplus' cash held in Ilkley Parish Council's reserves.

The main reason for the increase, it has been claimed, was the impending breakaway by Burley and Menston. Ilkley Parish Council is expected to be resized, representing just Ilkley and Ben Rhydding, and splitting the money in its accounts with Burley and Menston, based on the number of voters in each community.

Burley and Holme ward councillors abstained from the vote last week, as the precept will not affect residents of the wards they currently represent. The decision was agreed by all the other councillors present.

Mr Dundas told the Gazette: "This unreasonable Parish Tax is a widespread concern to people of all political persuasions in Ilkley."

He labelled the precept rise 'grandiose, vain and not appropriate to this small town of Ilkley', and criticised Councillor Brian Mann's call to consider the relatively low cost of the precept on individual households per week.

"The new Ilkley Council will have many tens of thousands of pounds of our money to disburse," he said.

Mr Dundas previously organised a petition calling for the parish council to 'give back' tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money held in its reserves.

But Parish council chairman Mike Gibbons repeated his defence of the precept rise, saying there would still be the expectation for Ilkley to carry on the activities it had done in the past.

And he said disbanding the council during the parish split would inconvenience all three communities. He fears it could mean the money in the parish accounts will be used to fund interim measures and setting-up costs which might alternatively be funded by other sources - instead of the money being split between the three parishes according to the number of voters.

"I just don't see how that would benefit anybody," said Councillor Gibbons.

Households in Menston, meanwhile, have been told to expect a precept of around £7.50 per year for a