A KINGSTEIGNTON pensioner is prepared to go to prison rather than pay increased council tax.
Seventy-year-old Tony Elliot, of Newcross Park, is faced with an increase of more than £150 on last year's figure and is determined to pay no more than the rate of inflation.
'We have paid our first instalment of £90 which is not the full amount of £102.
'I will continue to send money but only at the rate that I see fit because of the general way that the place is not up kept,' he said.
Mr Elliot said that he wrote to Teignbridge inviting a representative to witness the litter and weeds in Newcross Park but has not had a reply.
Mr Elliot and his wife Evelyn, 65, are members of the Devon Pensioners Action Forum and support its campaign to initiate a fair way of distributing and collecting money for local government finance.
'To do nothing is just an invitation to impose a further rise year after year.
'It's just gone on for too long, it has just gone up and up and up and the council do less and less and less,' said Mr Elliot.
For Mr Elliot, a prison protest 'is something I would just have to accept'.
'I write a lot, so perhaps I could write about my experiences in prison,' he said.
Albert Venison, chairman of the Devon Pensioners Action Forum, is urging pensioners to pay council tax only to the rate of inflation in protest at the high year-on-year increases.
Mr Venison said: 'Consultation over the past five years has resulted in little more than the same spin with little progress as to them understanding the pressures building up on those on fixed and low incomes, and not just pensioners.'
'This time we had to take some decisive and definite action,' said Mr Elliot.
Mr Venison said: 'My council tax went up by £4.15 a week, my pension went up by £1.96.'
'There is no way I can sustain payments with that income and as pensioners, we have no way of increasing our incomes.'
The campaign has attracted more than 100 new members to the forum.