COUNCIL chiefs are considering plans to create new parish councils across the borough which Labour warn could see a significant rise in council tax.

If the move goes ahead many services, such as street cleaning and play area maintenance, will be transferred to parish councils.

The change would then pave the way for an increase in the parish council element of the precept, which combined with a possible council tax rise of 1.9 per cent per year, could see an annual rise of £140 a year for band D properties by 2018.

The Conservative administration has confirmed it will propose the introduction of parish councils, which will be put to residents via a consultation, but they dispute the size of the tax rise.

Councillor Toby Elliott (Con, Priory Vale), the cabinet member for communities, said: "We want to deliver the best possible services to residents, particularly in these difficult economic times.

“Recently we have worked with four parish councils across the borough to pilot devolving grass cutting, hedge trimming, street cleaning and other services to them. The results of delivering these services at a much more local level have been very positive.

“Following these pilots we are going to commit to a Community Governance Review to ask the residents of Swindon, particularly those in unparished areas, whether this is a model they would like to look at.

“Unfortunately the Labour opposition have got their numbers completely wrong, even though I have already ensured they have been fully engaged and briefed on the matter.”

On Thursday night, a new Vision for Swindon was formerly passed by the council, which outlines how the town will move forward in the face of reduced finances and increased demand for services, which said other bodies would have greater involvement in the delivery of services.

Labour, says it understands council tax will rise by 1.9 per cent in each of the next three years as well as a £75 rise in the parish precept, and have criticised the proposals but will take a firm decision on where it stands when more details are available.

The Labour Group Leader, Coun Jim Grant (Lab, Rodbourne Cheney), said: “We are very concerned and quite angry about the Conservative Group’s plans to introduce parishes across all of Swindon.

“I believe they are trying to do this to get around the law which says that you cannot increase council-tax by two per cent or more without holding a referendum.

“The debate about whether to parish all areas of Swindon has only just started so the Labour Group hasn’t taken a firm position on these proposals yet, but I can’t see how we could support a proposal that will make the biggest increase of council-tax in a generation while setting up a new layer of bureaucracy of parish councils across most areas of the borough that is presently non-parished.”

The plans will be put forward to cabinet in October next year when permission for the governance review will be sought.