Although Tenby Town Council has slashed its proposed expenditure for the forthcoming year, residents are still facing a slight increase in the town precept for 2013/14.

However, councillors hope that taxpayers will agree that the work that they put into spending on worthwhile projects that benefit the town and its people is justification for the rise.

Explaining the anomaly in his summary of the figures at Tuesday night's meeting, town clerk, Mr. Andrew Davies, said: "Council will see that the total expenditure budget proposed is £122,827.41 less than last year, as last year we included sums to construct the Jubilee Play Park and Skate Plaza and to refurbish the Dyster Memorial Fountain.

"However, a large proportion of this was met through grant funding from reserves. As the DVP (Tenby) Trust will be operating the De Valence fully and will be grant funded to help continue the refurbishment programme for the building, we also lose the income from the De Valence which helped off-set some costs last year," he continued, explaining that with the loss of income taken into account, a precept requirement of £147,993 was left - an increase of £1,973.61 (or 1.35 per cent) on last year.

Mr. Davies also explained that, due to the unexpected but necessary expenditure incurred on the replacement of the heating system at the De Valence during the year, the council's reserves unfortunately had been left considerably depleted, leaving little available should members wish to reduce the precept requirement.

"With a downward revision to the Council Tax base this year, if the precept requirement is accepted without revision, the Band D equivalent precept levy will be £56.77, an increase of £1.13 on last year," he added.

Clr. Mrs. Christine Brown backed the budget, and said that she believed that the value of what the town council gave to the electorate was rather good and showed that they worked for the people of Tenby.

"On a whole we can look back on last year and say we did really well to take on three different projects," she commented, with Clr. Lawrence Blackhall also agreeing that the success of the projects showed that the town council had delivered significant things for the town.

"The Dyster Memorial Fountain has been brought back to the Square, the Jubilee Play Park, which has been promised for a while, was finally delivered last year and has proved immensely popular, and the De Valence was reopened, with thousands of people using it since," he remarked.

"Significant things have been delivered as a result of the decisions of this town council, and while we try to avoid any increase to the budget, it is a relatively low increase, mainly as a result of properties taken out of the area.

"It shows that we are not spending unnecessarily, but on projects that benefit the area," added Clr. Blackhall.

Councillors unanimously agreed to the budget and congratulated the town clerk and his assistant on their hard work in finalising the figures.