COUNCIL chiefs have agreed to write off almost £250,000 of "unrecoverable debt", but warned those who owe money not to rest easy.

At a meeting on Tuesday (June 4), Darlington Borough Council’s cabinet approved proposals to forego £247,288.62 of monies owed, which amounts to less than one per cent of total debt.

The cabinet agreed to write off sundry debtor invoices, with individual values of more than £500, in cases where it was considered there was no longer any practical or economic steps to be taken to recovery what was owed.

A report to members said: “Of the debts to be written–off, 97 individual debts amounting to £140,250 are more than one year old with 62 of those amounting to £85,877 being over two years old.

“As such, these debts have already been reflected in budgets and fully provided for in the Medium Term Financial Plan, as all sundry debts over one year old are included in the bad debt provision.”

The debts have been written off, subject to further action if and when further contact is made with debtors in the future.

Councillor Stephen Harker, cabinet member for efficiency and resources, said: “Nobody likes writing off debt, no matter how much money is involved.

“The amount of money we are being asked to write off amounts to 0.9 per cent [of what is owed] and any organisation that manages to write off such a small percentage of debt is working extremely well.

“This local authority has a long memory and if people come back on our radar, we will politely remind them that they owe us money.”