There is a total of £7,000 left to help support community groups in Midsomer Norton.

Or is there ?

That is the amount councillors were told was available in their pot, all the money left to be spent until April next year, even as in front of them were grant applications amounting to a total of £12,000.

The debate about how much money the Town Council has to award to groups and organisations in the town, turned into a major head-scratching session of the new finance committee. On the precept leaflet Midsomer Norton residents were told that there was £19,000 which is being spent on local community groups and societies, but now it seems the bulk of this has already been promised.

Questions were raised about a grant given to the Outfield Festival, of £3,000 which was originally costed for last year's budget, but according to Cllr Shaun Hughes this money has now to be found in this financial year. The same is the case for the Jubilee and help for the play park, two amounts of £1,000, which have also being pushed into this latest financial year.

The council had, according to the councillor made a "drastic overspend" last year and now this coming year there is no clear financial picture on how much money councillors can actually allocate. There are, the meeting was told, five organisations who have asked for grants.

You can watch the full discussion on the You Tube channel with a debate about what was described as a 'headache' before councillors could start spending any money.

Not over spend - the council has under spent ?

The locum clerk said there were underspends last year, such as the Christmas fayre which was a £3,000 underspend, but overall in total the grants supporting the community were overspent by over £7,000.

However in total he added that the income to the Town Council was £1.3 million and the spending £950,000 - giving an underspend of £335,000. Once movement of reserves were taking into account, there was essentially an underspend of £133,000.

Cllr Hughes expressed surprise at the figures adding that "something does not make sense... we need some confidence in the numbers.. if there really is £133,000 left then that is fantastic."

Other costings revealed in the meeting included grants to Somer Valley FM and the Somerset Farmers Market and one spend of £1,200 on the books which no one could recall what it was for.

At the tail end of the meeting, councillors were told they have been invited along to Keynsham Town Council meetings to see how they work their accounting system and protocols.