COUNCILLORS in Marlborough have agreed that the town proportion of council tax will have to go up by more than 20 per cent.

The rise has been caused largely as a result of costs involved in replacing three play areas in the town which were recently dismantled for safety reasons.

On Monday, the town council agreed to a precept of £120,421 which is the first time the town council element of the council tax has exceeded £100,000.

The precept for the current financial year is £99,000.

By breaking through the £100,000 barrier the town council will, under local Government regulations, have to include with council tax demands an explanatory leaflet about how it is spending the money.

But the town council element of the council tax passed on to homes in Marlborough would have been a third higher if councillors had not agreed to cushion the financial burden by taking £60,000 from its reserves.

The move has, however, caused disagreements within the council.

Some councillors, including Coun Stewart Dobson, the longest-serving council member, think that it is imprudent to take cash from reserves.

He joined councillors Marian Hannaford, Margaret Rose and Maurice Cooper in voting against using money from reserves to bolster the precept.

Coun Hannaford said that at this rate there was only five years to go before the council depleted its reserves entirely. At a recent meeting of the finance and general purposes committee she asked: "What will councillors do then?"

Coun Joan Evans said it had to be made clear that the main reason for the steep increase in predicted council spending in 2002/2003 was the cost of replacing the play equipment removed by council staff from three play areas Coopers Meadow, Rabley Wood and Manton after wooden supports were found to be rotten.

Coun Evans said: "I think the public also ought to know that this was not the whole of the precept and that we are making up the difference from our reserves."

An investigation is currently going on into why the condition of the relatively modern play areas in the town was found to be so dangerous, with such marked deterioration.