BLEADON Parish Council has raised its portion of the council tax bill – but residents will actually pay less than last year.

The authority has increased its precept from �35,000 to �37,500, but because of a change in boundaries there will be more households within the parish to divide the bill.

This means that a Band D household will pay �70.08 a year - �2.91 less than the previous year.

Parish councillors discussed the precept at their monthly meeting last week.

Clerk Bruce Poole said: “We don’t want to be faced with North Somerset Council coming along next year saying it is withdrawing services and then we find we are stuck if we don’t raise the precept.”

Councillor Keith Pyke said: “This is a one-off opportunity to raise income without hurting anybody.”

But Councillor Robert House said the precept was already very high and was ‘historically’ the most expensive.

He added: “Just because the money is available doesn’t mean we have to grab it.”

Mr Poole said that the council has kept the precept within �500 for the last three years and it had already agreed to spend �16,000 from its reserves for planned projects.

Cllr House’s motion to keep the precept the same was defeated and the majority voted in favour of raising it.