Council tax payers in Falmouth could see a reduction in their annual bill after 91 homes were found to be incorrectly allocated to Penryn.

At a meeting of Falmouth Town Council last night, Cllr David Saunby, who voted against the original 2.94% increase in its precept from April 2022, told councillors he had discovered the mistake during his own research.

The 91 tax paying houses are in the new Union Corner Estate, Kergilliack Road and Oakland Parc which were originally identified as being in Penryn instead of Falmouth following boundary changes.

The discovery means that it is possible that, once the mistake has been rectified, the Falmouth precept increase could be reduced to 1.6%.

Mr Saunby told the meeting: "I did not support the budget this year because I felt that with all these additional properties coming into Falmouth from Budock that my personal opinion was that we didn't need to increase it.

"After doing some investigating by trying to find out how many properties the amount in money we should be receiving for the precept, I've had a reply now from Cornwall Council saying in 91 of the properties out of 350 the precept was going to go to Penryn because they got their boundaries wrong.

"Through my persistence we have got that money which we may not have got because it would have gone to Penryn.

Mr Saunby said he was trying to investigate further to see if any more properties should have to come to Falmouth.

"We have 350 homes and that's a lot of money for the precept coming to our coffers and not other councils, so I am waiting for a reply on that one," he said.

Town clerk Mark Williams told the Packet: "If they [the houses] have been apportioned to the wrong area then that will change the taxbase calculation.

"That is the figure we use to base our tax call (precept) on. If there are more properties in the Falmouth calculation then that spreads the load and Falmouth residents overall should pay less. "We of course need Cornwall Council to confirm that."

The precept is the town council’s share of the council tax. The precept demand goes to the billing authority, Cornwall Council, which collects the tax for the town council.

The 'precept' is converted into an amount per Council Tax Band that is added onto the Council Tax bill.

Falmouth mayor Steve Eva, congratulated Mr Saunby on his discovery. "I have spoken to the finance officer and she has explained what you have done and I thought it is great what you have done," he said.

He said if it was agreed it could reduce the precept for Falmouth from 2.9% to about 1.6%, with a council gain of around £34,000.

"Just hoping it will be the case that Cornwall Council see it that way," said Mr Saunby.