A VILLAGER was asked to leave a parish council meeting following a row about hanging baskets.

In light of proposals to increase local tax, irate resident John Holland said Malpas Parish Council should not have paid for hanging baskets for the village earlier this year.

After a heated exchange, Mr Holland was asked to leave before a debate, which led to a U-turn, took place and for the fifth year running, members decided not to raise the precept.

'It is wrong to raise it by 11% and expect elderly people to pay it out of their pensions when you spend public money on hanging baskets,' said Mr Holland.

'It is a waste of £355 of vital resources, which could have spent elsewhere within the village.'

The council asked Mr Holland to end the discussion when the half-hour open forum section of the meeting had closed. But when he continued, they had to repeatedly ask him to leave.

Cllr Colin said: 'I volunteer my spare time to work for the village. I came to this meeting tonight to do something for Malpas, not to listen to people like you.'

Before he left the meeting room in the Malpas Jubilee Hall, Mr Holland handed out copies of the correspondence he had with the council.

Mr Holland had pointed out that paying for the 40 hanging baskets put up outside business premises, in an effort to make the village look more attractive, was unnecessary.

He also asked for a full list of the recipients of the hanging baskets.

In an e-mail to Chester City and parish councillor Keith Ebben, Mr Holland said: 'Most of the hanging baskets have gone to businesses which trade within the village and therefore the baskets are deemed legitimate business expenses by the Inland Revenue.

'Had the businesses bought their own hanging baskets, the revenue would have allowed the total cost to be offset against tax. I checked with the Revenue to ensure that this was correct.

'They even suggested that the parish council may wish to sell the baskets to the businesses and then the businesses recover the cost through their trading return. Bigger and better baskets could flood the village next year with no cost to the trader or to the parish council.'

In a reply, Cllr Ebben thanked Mr Holland for the information, said it was a good idea and asked if he would be willing to help in organising it next year.

But Mr Holland sent an e-mail back saying: 'I do not believe that hanging baskets should be the responsibility of the parish council. They should be the responsibility of the individual businesses.

'I, and many other members of the electorate, would find it totally wrong of the council to use public money to fund private business expenditure.'

Cllr Ebben replied: 'The reason the parish council started this in the first place was to create a sense of village pride and unity.

'The harsh reality is that if we took no action then nothing would happen. The community seems fairly happy that we spend a small amount of the precept in this way to enhance the appearance of the High Street.'

The parish council clerk Margaret Barker wrote to Mr Holland and said that the hanging baskets had originally been put up on lamp-posts in the village.

In the first year this took place, resident Peter Eyre volunteered to water them, but this year he felt he could not do it again. So councillors decided to give the baskets, which were bought for £7 each, to businesses so they could take responsibility for watering them.

She added: 'I take my role as financial officer very seriously. I take your point that the baskets can be offset by income tax but if the businesses do not want to go down that line, then Malpas will have no hanging baskets.'

Mr Holland turned down an invitation to attend a parish council meeting in September.

He added: 'You say that £355 is a small amount of money to spend. This must be in the region of 3-5% of the budget and could be a life saver to many other projects the parish council may wish to fund. Conversely, you may wish to propose that the parish council reduce its precept by £355.'