Falmouth Town Council has formally agreed on a 29 per cent increase of its precept after rejecting one member’s plea to defer making a final decision until a public meeting could be held to enable residents to have their say.

Councillor Oliver Cramp said: “I have had my arm twisted quite a lot on this. The feeling is we are rushing into it and not consulting people. There were various options that could have been considered but were not. A meeting would let people air their feelings.”

However, the rest of the councillors present at Monday night’s meeting suggested that the fact no residents had attended or lodged complaints over the proposed hike implied most people did not have an issue with the increased budget.

Councillor Candy Atherton, chair of the finance and general purposes committee, said: “There is a marked absence of people here. People are not tardy on giving me their opinion in this town but I have not had anybody approach me.

“We need to get on with it. I do think it’s too late, we made our decision, we have our plans and I would urge the council tonight to support the precept.”

Deputy mayor, Gerald Chin-Quee, added: “I do think it is a very worthwhile budget. We are trying to mitigate some of the austerity measures coming down from Government and Cornwall Council, but it is a progressive budget too.

“To leave it for another month seriously undermines what we are trying to do and would seriously delay everything. Now is not the time to be pulling everything apart.”

The town council eventually agreed on Monday that its precept for 2015/16 will be £1,362,414 which is an increase of £316,912 on this year. That equates to an increase in council tax of 90 pence a week on a band D property.

The higher than usual increase will enable the town council to forge ahead with new initiatives while also honouring its commitment to CCTV monitoring, toilet cleaning, pursuing an Article 4 direction and environmental issues.

New projects on the cards include employing its own environmental health officer to deal with noisy parties, taking control of the library and potentially extending its opening hours, providing a second shuttle bus to serve the town and the creation of an in-house environmental/town maintenance team.