A debt of almost £55,000 owed to the council by one tenant is to be written off after finance chiefs said they couldn’t collect it. The unpaid sum is almost exactly the amount that the council hopes to save next year by dimming streetlights.

Bracknell Forest Council leaders voted last week to write off rent arrears of £54,149.60 owed by a former tenant of one of the council’s commercial properties. Stuart McKellar, the council’s senior official in charge of finance, said all methods of collecting the debt had been ‘exhausted’.

Council proposals to write off the debt said: “A prior commercial property tenant accumulated a significant level of rental arrears over a number of years.

“All opportunities for recovery have now been exhausted and the only option is to now write off this debt, totalling £54,149.60.”

The proposals also said the council would make up for the uncollected debt by dipping into one of its reserves – pots of money it sets aside to help balance the books.

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Bracknell Forest’s leading group of councillors – the executive committee – agreed the write-off on Tuesday, November 12.

The same vote also saw them agree to some £5.5 million of ‘savings’ next year – including plans to save some £55,000 by dimming streetlights by 10 per cent.

Mr McKellar explained that the executive had to approve any debt write-off over £50,000, but added that this was ‘unusual.’

He said: “It’s for a commercial property, which all attempts to recover have been exhausted. There is no further option other than to write it off.

“It’s the first time I can remember in seven years for such a recommendation to be made. It’s a very very unusual situation for executive to be asked to approve that.”

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Bracknell Forest Council did not say which commercial property the debt was for, how and why the arrears built up, or what it had done to collect the money, when asked by the News. Commercial properties owned by the council include offices, shops, pubs and storage units.

Kevin Gibbs, the council’s executive director for delivery, said the council had to weigh up the costs of chasing debts against the likelihood of recovering them.

He said: “The council has measures in place to retrieve any debts owed. However, there are certain circumstances whereby some debts, particularly historic ones, can be difficult to recover.

“Each case is considered based on its particular circumstances. The main factors taken into account include the potential costs of chasing the debt and the likelihood of it being successfully recovered.”