A NORTH Yorkshire parish has expressed its outrage after learning it will lose more than half its income because of Government red tape.

The Government has instructed auditors to check the accounts of even the smallest parish meetings.

That means Lastingham, on the North Yorkshire Moors, will have to meet a £58 audit charge - even though its total income is only £100.

Parish meeting chairman Keith Gavins said that for smaller communities, the charges were an outrage - and said they could help to strangle local democracy.

Lastingham does not set a parish precept, instead it relies on voluntary contributions, but under the new system, any parish with financial transactions must be audited.

"It is almost impossible for a parish meeting to have zero financial transactions - if the chairman bought a book of stamps and donated them to us they would be classed as a gift and have to be accounted," Mr Gavins said.

"I feel very strongly about this and I have support from other parish chairmen. The sum of money is not that great, but it is unethical that an auditor should audit an account where his own fee is more than half the actual account."

He said: "People have said that they will disband their meetings, but then you cease to be a part of local government."

At Barugh Ambos, near Pickering, the parish council has gone into debt because of the audits.

Chairman Peter Milner said: "When we set the precept for this last year, we were not expecting those sorts of figures in any way, shape or form.

"We are a small parish being bombarded by another heap of red tape and form-filling."