Councillors in Tavistock say they want to keep residents’ tax bills below the rate of inflation next year despite continuing uncertainty over the Covid-19 pandemic.

Members of the town council’s budget and policy committee are recommending that their portion of the council tax (precept) should be below three per cent.

That comes despite 18 months of pressures caused by the pandemic which resulted in a hefty cut in income from tenants of council properties such as the pannier market and a reduction in council staff.

Committee chairman Cllr Harry Smith, in asking councillors to endorse the proposal, said the town’s council tax demands should be among the lowest compared to other authorities such as the county council and the police ‘when the bills hit the doormats’ later this year.

He said the proposed increase, which will be put before full council later this month, would represent an extra 10.16p per week for local residents.

A report to the committee by town clerk Carl Hearn said the council normally made extensive use of its commercial income to subsidise services to the community.

But he said the fall-out from the pandemic and uncertainty about what would happen next was having an effect on budget preparations for the next financial year. Other factors were also having an impact, including the ‘high and growing levels of inflation’ and the uncertainty over some income streams.

He said: ‘It therefore continues to be the case that the residual, current and projected impacts of coronavirus — both direct and indirect — mean that the level of confidence with which future projections can be made is diminished from what would typically be expected.’

Mr Hearn’s report said the council had responded with ‘a wide range of mitigations to support its financial position’ through the use of money in its the general reserve, through to wide-ranging savings including operation on a ‘substantially impacted establishment’.