Residents have been warned Hadleigh's share of council tax charges will rise anywhere from between 10% to 35% to cover town authority's expenditure.

That would mean Band D residents forking out on average between £11.29 and £34.47 just for the town's portion of the council tax, with Suffolk County Council, Babergh District Council, Adult Care and the Police and Fire Commissioner also adding their charges on top.

The warning came during the draft budget discussion session at the monthly meeting of Hadleigh Town Council last night, where it was also revealed more than £330,000 would be taken from the reserves to pay towards various projects, leaving the council close to the lowest amount of reserves allowed to be left in the coffers.

Councillor Rolf Beggerow, a qualified accountant who assisted in preparing the draft budget for free, opened his warts and all presentation by saying: "It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out the difficult situation we face financially in the coming two to three years."

Three long term spending commitments were identified, two of them legally binding, with Babergh facility management fee for Hadleigh Leisure Centre facilities (but not the swimming pool) of between £29k-£31k to be paid annually until 2032.

There are also a loan repayment for cemetery extension of around £30K until 2042 and a contribution to Guildhall, which has been budgeted for £42k, which would account for one-third of the current precept.

The council would also need to find £467k for potential future projects, including 3G pitches and the Layham Road pavilion, although grants would also be sought from Babergh, Football Stadia changing rooms fund and RFU

Cllr Beggerow told the meeting: "There will be £330,000 potentially coming out of the town council reserves, albeit £230k of that already in the earmarked category, nevertheless it will be coming out of the town council's bank account."

With the number of people eligible to pay council tax still being collated by Babergh due to an increase in unemployment and other reasons why people able to claim discounts, the tax base has yet to be announced meaning hadleigh councillors can not yet produce definitive figure for its precept to cover their cost of its expenditure.

Cllr Beggerow said: "We all know the politics of this level, it won't be that (for illustration purposes) Hadleigh Town Council is asking for another £11.29 from everyone to help its recover from its financial status it will be a headline of 10% but that is the nature of the council tax regime."

"The message I'm delivering is that we are in a serous position and some form of action needs to be taken.

"One hopes they aren't the negative ones, which says we can't afford to do all these things that we would like to."

Cllr Andrew Knock thanked Cllr Beggerow for all his hard work in preparing the budget and said he believed the 3G pitches and the new pavilion were projects most people wanted but questioned what level of grants have been made available.

An insurance pay out of £129,000 would go towards the new pavilion and Cllr Beggerow said the only grants he was confident of getting would be for the 3G pitches for 70% from the Football Foundation but admitted the group had not yet approached Babergh for grants.

Member of the public Roger Young was allowed to make a point and he told council: "In order to have a balanced budget the precept would have to go up by 35%.

"I would like you to think of that figure when you are deciding the precept. That's the truth of the matter and it scares me silly."

Cllr Beggerow said: "I can't argue with the general thrust of his comment, how it is presented does not change the seriousness and you can take view that we must break even, if we were to do that with the projects he would be right and we wanted to recover the deficit in one year then he wold be right. It would need another £130,000 and that means another £30

Cllr Knock added: The previous councils' refusal to make any increases was a mistake which has come back to bite us."

*The budget paper can be found here...