Falmouth town councillors have been told they should not be “resting” on their laurels in their efforts to keep council tax as low as possible.

The call was made at meeting of Falmouth Town Council’s Finance and General Purposes Committee last week.

The committee considered The National Association of Local Councils annual review of how much councils had raised their council tax by this year and what they had spent it on.

A summary of the report, compiled by the town council, showed that whereas there were only five town or parish councils nationally setting at the level of Falmouth Town Council (over £3m), now there were 16.

It said of those large councils in Falmouth’s precepting range the highest increase was 172% while Falmouth Town Council was one of only a few councils in this range that hadn’t had to increase precept by at least 10%, with Falmouth at 1.93% for 24/25.

Committee chair Jude Robinson told councillors: “We’re doing quite well but I don’t think any of us want to rest on our laurels and there is still a lot of work to do to keep the precept down in the future,” she said. “This is an illustration of the efficacy [how well it works] of our budget.”

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Cllr John Spargo said he agreed with Cllr Robinson that the council should not rest on its laurels and bring the precept down as much as they can.

“Over the last four years we’ve gone up at 40%,” he said. “Although there seems to be the same councils having the same issues to deal with, we need to be able to work hard to bring those precepts down as much as we can.”

Cllr Robinson said the council put the precept up because the people of the town asked it to save the Princess Pavilion.

Cllr Dean Evans said the conclusions that have been drawn were not necessarily accurate or actually the true story.

“It’s all relative and I don’t think we can draw the conclusions that you have drawn with that statement,” he said.