Wycombe District Council’s share of the council tax looks set to go up amid fury from High Wycombe town committee members who accused the cabinet of treating them “appallingly”.

The cabinet agreed to recommend that the entire council’s share of the council tax increase by £5 from £131.99 to £136.99 at a meeting on Monday night.

It will be officially decided upon at a meeting of the full council.

However the decision caused upset among councillors on the town committee, who last month had been tasked with deciding whether to keep their section of the council tax for the unparished area of High Wycombe at £17.12 for a band D property or to increase it, with their recommendations then taken to cabinet.

They decided to keep it as it is at their last meeting on January 23 because an increase in the number of new properties in the town means their precept would increase without the need to hike up the council tax.

However, at a meeting of the cabinet on Monday night, their recommendations were seemingly ignored - with finance chief Cllr David Watson suggesting that if the council tax level was kept at £17.12 for High Wycombe, the committee would be raking in more money than needed because it would increase their precept to £388,000 from £376,000.

It was therefore agreed by the cabinet that the town committee’s portion of the council tax for a band D property should be £16.82, meaning less money would be able to go into their reserves for major projects like a new cemetery and putting their precept at £381,000.

Town committee chairman, Cllr Green, said: “The town committee has been treated appallingly. At our meeting we had a report produced by finance officers of this council and the recommendation was what we agreed as a committee – to keep it at the existing level.

“This is a first, I don’t think the cabinet has ever not agreed with the town committee’s recommendation and if this was a town council, you wouldn’t be able to [disagree].

“What annoys us is that all we were doing was acting on good faith. If the recommendation had been to go for a slightly smaller precept, we probably would have agreed it.

“While we are taking in more money than we need – like the council is too – we all do it and put it into contingency.

“We are building a new cemetery and that will take a chunk out of our reserves. We do need to build our funds to take care of that. We have the de facto role of a town council and that needs to be taken seriously.”

Town committee member Cllr Marten Clarke added that the committee had been “treated with contempt”.

In response, Cllr Watson apologised, while council leader Katrina Wood said the figures would be kept under review throughout the year to make sure the town committee was not adversely affected.

She said: “The committee will still have a balanced budget, but will have less to put into its reserves. The impact of that £8,000 change in contributions - I will make sure it is kept under review throughout the year, so if it causes them an issue we will make sure it doesn’t.”