At least £1,000 a day of taxpayers' money is being wasted on interest payments for a loan which has never been used, it has been claimed.

Tunbridge Wells Council cabinet borrowed £20m from the government in the hope of buying the Land Register office in Tunbridge Wells, which is to close.

Under the terms of the loan, the council must repay £1m every six months, but is also obliged to pay the first year’s interest, even if it repaid all the money the next day. It agreed an interest rate of 2.38 per cent over 10 years.

Three months after taking out the loan on July 19, the cash is still sitting in the council’s own bank accounts.

Now some councillors have criticised their colleague's actions.

A censure motion, scheduled by Cllr Brian Ransley (Con), of Capel Ward, said: "This council censures the actions of the cabinet members who led it to borrow £20 million at a net interest cost of at least £360,000 to the taxpayers, equivalent to a 9.5 per cent rise in council tax, before any contracts had been signed to buy any property.

"It further censures those cabinet members, namely the leader and the finance portfolio-holder (Cllr Leonard Horwood), for the decision to buy the Land Registry building with no credible business case."

The figure of £360,000 that Cllr Ransley has calculated is the £476,00 interest the council must repay the Government less the interest it is itself receiving on the money.

Cllr Ransley said: "The interest the council is earning is only around 24 per cent of that it is paying to the government."

Cllr Sean Holden (Con) of Cranbrook said: "This is a scandalous waste of public money. The public are paying £30,000 from their council tax on interest payments every month, for nothing."

Cllr Ransley said: "I shall be submitting a report to the standards committee that I hope will debated at their meeting on November 11."

Council leader Roy Bullock (Con) stepped in to block the motion of censure on himself and his cabinet colleagues.

Cllr Bullock objected on a point of order to prevent a full council meeting from discussing the motion, saying that such a motion had to be submitted to the council’s standards committee.

Cllr Ransley plans to put the motion to the committee.

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