Top level talks aimed at getting a fairer deal for council taxpayers in Castle Point were due to take place today.

A council delegation was set to meet Government minister Nick Raynsford to make representations on the borough's provisional finance settlement for 1999/2000.

The authority believes Castle Point has missed out on vital cash because of restrictions placed on councils with large numbers of commuters.

When the projected standard spending assessment was announced last month, Castle Point received an annual hike of 2.4 per cent - as opposed to the national average of 4.8 per cent.

The Government had estimated there were 20,000 commuters in the borough and reduced the financial allocation. It means the council can spend less on services than it could had the SSA been higher.

Michael Clayton, Castle Point's director of finance, said: "When Government support is distributed, a council's population is reduced by one-quarter for each person who commutes to work outside the area.

"There is no evidence to show that spending needs to be reduced because of this and for many local services, such as refuse collection, development control and council tax collection, it obviously cannot be true."

Mr Clayton was due to be joined by council leader Dave Wells, councillors Dave Robinson and Dennis Neyland along with chief executive Barry Rollinson. They will be supported by Christine Butler , Castle Point's Labour MP.

Mr Clayton added: "We are hopeful that the Government will listen to our argument and we feel that that we have to make these representations for the sake of our residents and our council taxpayers."

He has already presented two papers to the Government proposing that there should be no reduction for commuter outflow.

Mr Clayton estimated that if this was the case, the borough would have then received an additional SSA increase of 4.2 per cent.

Mr Robinson, finance and policy committee chairman, said: "Although we have welcomed many aspects of the settlement, we are very disappointed that the Government has not taken the opportunity to put this matter right.

"We will continue to fight for a fairer share of Government support for our council tax payers."

The Castle Point spending assessment went up from £6.379m to £6.533m under the 2.4 per cent increase announced in December.

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