Colchester residents could face a 19 per cent rise in council tax because of a budget gap of more than £400,000.

Last night (Thursday), councillors angrily called for changes to be made to the "major problem" of the budget setting to stop a shortfall happening "every year".

At a Colchester Council cabinet meeting, complaints were made the budget setting system was not successful and needed reviewing.

Philip Hawkins (Lab, Wivenhoe) said: "I was assured things would be different this year but it has stayed exactly the same. We are having to cut things here and slice things there to balance it up.

"We haven't got a proper policy in place and we need one.

Richard Bourne (Lab, Shrub End) said: "It is worse than last year.

"At least last year there was an attempt to look at redistribution. These policies exclude whole areas of expenditure which time and time again have come out as needing to be changed.

"Everyone agrees it doesn't work but we run on this autopilot which grinds it through yet again. All this shows is that we've got a major problem that we need to address.

He added: "We have got a major structural problem and while it doesn't look as if it will be solved this year I hope there is some effort to tackle it next year."

John Jowers (Con, West Mersea) "We are looking at a 19 per cent rise in council tax if nothing is changed."

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.