A LAST-minute bid by the Liberal Democrat Group on Teignbridge Council failed to prevent the Tory-controlled district authority raising the council tax by £5, at Tuesday’s (budget meeting.

It represents a 3.33 per cent increase on Band D properties for 2016-2017 to £155.17 and comes after a five-year freeze.

At last year’s annual meeting leader Cllr Jeremy Christophers had said that they had laid solid foundations for the future. ‘During the next four years we will continue to extend the council tax freeze by continuing to run the finances of the council effectively and work with local businesses to provide new opportunities to grow their enterprises, by helping them to move on to the new employment land delivered in the Local Plan,’ he had stated.

In January the executive had recommended a 1.95 per cent increase, but changed its mind on February 10, when, at the 11th hour, the government informed councils that in pre-settlement they could have a higher referendum limit of a £5 increase.

On Tuesday Cllr Christophers described it as an ‘invest to save budget.’

He highlighted some of the council investments that he described as paying enormous dividends to the economic and social well-being of the public – £500,000 into the South Devon Link Road, the South Devon University Technical College in Newton Abbot, and at Teignmouth the soon-to-be-opened state-of- the-art Pavilions replacing the Carlton Theatre, and the new fish quay.

The council had also invested by buying the Newton Abbot Market Walk.

‘I think it delivers a major shot in the arm for Teignbridge,’ said Cllr Christophers.

Proposing an amendment, Cllr Gordon Hook said the Lib Dem Group believed the proposed £100,000 expenditure on a free pop concert – referring to BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend at Powderham Castle at the end of May – ‘is a fundamentally flawed decision based on a misconception of our role as a local authority’.

He maintained Exeter, not Teignbridge would be the main beneficiary.

The chairman, Cllr Mike Hocking, told Cllr Hook that the expenditure on the event had already been passed by council and that was the end of it.

Cllr Hook added that the Lib Dems would not be spending £100,000 on a pop concert, would drop by £50,000 the £1 million earmarked to be invested in the pension fund, reduce by £33,000 the projected figure for new wheelie bins down to £66,000, reduce by £29,000 the communications budget, and save £86,000 by not filling a vacant corporate leadership post.

All 16-19-year-olds would be offered free bus passes and £69,000 put into litter prevention measures, as well as introducing an electric car charging point in Newton Abbot, Teignmouth and Dawlish, for which grants were available.

‘Our final proposal is a £69,000 budgetary commitment towards off setting the disastrous elimination of the budget for those in great housing need by reinstating the Local Welfare Support Grant,’ he said.

Amendments by the Lib Dems were defeated 29-13. 30-12, and the £5 council tax rise proposed by Cllr Stuart Barker, who said it represented an increase in Teignbridge of 9.6p per week, was carried 32-10.