CLEVEDON Town Council is hoping to save residents money this year by reducing its precept by 22.5 per cent.

CLEVEDON Town Council is hoping to save residents money this year by reducing its precept by 22.5 per cent.

Councillors have managed to cut internal expenditure and release money not used from the council's reserves to reduce its precept this year.

The precept for Clevedon Town Council will be £147,000 for 2008/2009, compared to £190,000 in the last financial year.

Town councillor Carl Francis-Pester said: "It's not going to be repeated every year, but we've managed to make savings and taken some money out of reserves.

"We felt we wanted to set the example in the area.

"We've managed different budgets of the council's committees more efficiently and we also had money earmarked in reserves for projects which are not going to need doing so the money we've saved is about £43,000."

The council had set aside money in reserves in case cash was needed for a number of projects in the town, which did not come to fruition, enabling the money to be released into the council's daily budget.

Cllr Francis-Pester said: "We are very pleased, but we want to stress that there will be no reduction in the services we provide. The savings are just down to more prudent management of resources."

The precept has been agreed by the finance and general policy committee and the proposal is due to go before the full council at its meeting tonight (Wed) at the Council House, Old Street, at 7.30pm.