Dartmouth householders are facing a five percent hike in the town's share of council tax bills – to help fund a 'wish list' of projects which includes shifting silt out of the town's Boatfloat, painting the market walls and funding floral efforts.

The town council could have got away without increasing the tax bill at all and still covered its 'household' bills – including the £30,000 it expects to lose on its Guildhall headquarters and the £113,000 needed to run the council's administration.

But the five per cent increase – which will help produce a £144,000 council tax precept for the coming year – will ensure the council can afford to carry out the extra projects.

They include:

l Spending £25,000 on clearing the silt from the town's Boatfloat.

l Spending another £25,000 on repairing and redecorating the exterior walls of the town market.

l Spending £60,000 on repairing the council owned flat at 6a The Butterwalk.

l Giving £5,000 to Dartmouth in Bloom to support the town's annual floral efforts.

l Putting £13,500 towards the towns Newcomen celebration next year.

l Putting £2,000 towards celebrating the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.

The councillors also want to hand out grants to the Citizens Advice Bureau and the Ring and Ride service.

But they voted to veto the idea of pumping £1,000 into celebrations to mark the arrival of the Olympic torch next year, after hearing that the flame will by-pass the town centre.

The town council's finance committee chairman Francis Hawke told councillors that the Olympic torch would be coming from Stoke Fleming to Britannia Royal Naval College via College Way before heading back up College Way out of the town.

Cllr Debbie Morris said: 'So they are not even visiting the town then? In that case we can knock out the £1,000.'

The finance committee spent more than two hours debating its budget for the coming financial year before going for the five per cent increase as a recommendation to the next town council meeting.

During the debate, the councillors also recommended that the cost of burials in the town's Longcross Cemetery should go up by 10 percent.

And while they decided the £1,000 budget for Dartmouth's Youth Council should be cut by £500, they want to see the amount spent on repairing the Royal Avenue Gardens amenity hut increase by £500 to £1,000.

The councillors were told that by dredging the Boatfloat next year at the same time that the harbour authority is dredging a section of the river they could use the same contractor and save £15,000 between them on the final bill.

Cllr Hawke said that while the council had spent more than £400,000 on making the town market look 'very nice inside', the outside still looks 'bloody awful'.

And although the town's museum wants to take over the town council-owned flat at 6a The Butterwalk, so that it can expand, the town council is looking at spending £60,000 on major improvements so that it can get an income of up to £12,000 a year in rent from a tenant.

The Dartmouth in Bloom group – which won a prestigious gold award in this year's regional Britain in Bloom competition – had asked for a £7,000 grant from the town council.

The finance council agreed to recommend that the group should get £5,000 instead.

The five percent increase in the town council's share of the council tax will produce a total of £140,910.

The councillors are recommending a spend of £137,660 with the difference put aside as a contingency sum to help build up the council's reserves.