Boat owners, stallholders and even the dead could have to shell out more to give Dartmouth residents a council tax break next year.

Town councillors want to push up the price of burial fees for the cemetery and the cost of renting stalls in the market by an inflation-busting 10 percent.

They also aim to increase the cost of renting a mooring in the council- owned Boat Float by 10 percent for locals and a whopping 20 percent for outsiders.

The extra cash the increases will bring in are designed to ensure the council can peg its share of the council tax bills for the coming financial year.

Meanwhile, the council has been forced to abandon its plans to try and get a £26,000 VAT rebate on some of the work it did on the town market this summer and effectively swallow the bill.

And it is recommending that the town puts aside £80,000 and decides later just how it could be spent following talks with Dartmouth's swimming pool project trustees – who are expecting the town to hand over up to £250,000 towards the £2.5m project in the relatively near future.

The council's finance committee had been looking at shoving its share of the town's tax bill up by five percent to help pay for a whole range of projects – including work on the Boat Float, the market, and a flat it owns in The Butterwalk.

But in the end councillors declared they did not want to see an increase in tax bills to pay for the £140,000 proposed budget.

Cllr Paul Reach said: 'In the current climate all you have to do is look at South Hams Council and Devon County Council which is making cuts of £40m. Even keeping the bill level is possibly not responsible and maybe we should be reducing it by five percent.'

A five percent increase on the town's share of the council tax bill would have loaded an extra 20p a month, or around £2.50 a year, on average tax bills across Dartmouth.

The proposed increases will mean upping the £300 burial fees for the council-run Longcross cemetery by £30.

Market traders would have to pay an extra £1.50 on top of the £15 they currently pay to hire stalls in the market while local boat owners would have to fork out around £25 on the average £230 bill for mooring in the Boat Float while outside would end up paying even more.

All that would bring in an extra £4,000 or £5,000 and cover the cost of any tax increase.

The special meeting of the town's finance committee was held last week after councillors were forced to shelve making a final budget decision at the last minute over concerns about shortfalls.

One of the major concerns is the possible £250,000 the council is going to have to find now that the swimming pool trustees have announced that work on the pool is going to start next year.

There is also uncertainty over just how much the council needs to spend on the Boat Float and on the Butterwalk Flat.

Rather than allocating the £80,000 it will have spare if the current budget is approved, councillors decided to give themselves some flexibility for when the swimming pool needs and the future of the other projects become clearer.

Finance committee chairman Francis Hawke warned that the cash promised to the pool scheme would have to be 'factored' into the budget in some way but added: 'We need to talk to the trustees in the new year to see how the programme is going to come forward.'

Deputy mayor Dave Cawley was adamant the council needs to plan for finding cash for the pool now.

'I think that it is going to happen and we should put some money away next year. We should start saving for it now,' he said.

The finance committee's budget's recom will still have to go before a full meeting of the council on January 9 before they are finally approved.