Spending almost a million pounds on turning Marlborough Town Hall into a modern entertainment centre with facilities including digital cinema need not leave the town with crippling repayment charges, says town clerk Liam Costello.

He was responding to criticism of the proposals from husband and wife councillors Stewart Dobson and Marian Hannaford-Dobson that if the scheme was funded by a loan it could leave Marlborough tax payers with huge repayments over the next 20 years.

Coun Dobson said he was shocked to hear that the council could sell off some of its properties to finance the town hall project because it would lose the rental income from them.

“From what I have been told they want to sell off the family silver,” said Coun Dobson referring to the properties owned by the town council including its offices and flats above at 5 High Street, the Helen and Douglas House Hospice building on the corner of Kingsbury Street and two cottages in Salisbury Road.

Coun Dobson said: “The town clerk came up to me at a do just before Christmas and said he could not understand why the town council bothered with all its property and could do better things with the money they would make.

“But we need the income from these properties to keep the precept to its present level, which is one of the highest in Wiltshire.”

The two councillors expressed concern that the town council, which has never borrowed money in its history, would have to borrow at least £700,000 from the Public Works and Loans Board.

They said that would require annual payments of nearly £68,000, which would mean the present 116 town hall bookings a year would need to increase to 600 or be met by reductions in other council services.

However, the husband and wife said they believed some parts of the project were worthwhile, including the provision of new public toilets and the relocation of council offices into the town hall.

Responding to the councillors’ fears, the town clerk said that the council did not necessarily have to borrow money.

Mr Costello said: “It is perfectly feasible, with prudent financial management, to finance this project without increasing council tax levels at the same time as maintaining existing services provision.

“There are a number of ways of achieving that. One using PWLB loans as Coun Dobson shows. Others include the use of receipts from the disposal of assets that are not strategically important to the council.”

Project leader Coun Guy Loosmore said the scheme was vital to make the town hall viable and he accused the Dobsons of having “an introspective lack of vision for this town”.