A hard-up council's plans to offer cash incentives to tenants to vacate their farms was today condemned as "disgraceful and immoral."

North Yorkshire county councillors have agreed to pay lump sums of up to £50,000 to persuade tenants to quit council farms, hoping that quick sales will boost empty council coffers and help reduce the authority's mounting debt of over £100 million.

Director of environmental services Mike Moore says council taxpayers could benefit enormously by making payments to tenants to retire.

The council could sell the farm or smallholding on the open market, while its sales to existing tenants could be subject to substantial discounts.

But the controversial plans have come under fire from county and Selby district councillor Kevin Aston.

He said: "I find it immoral to use council taxpayers' money to pay farmers off so we can get our hands on the farms.

"If we have to sell off the family silver, let's sell silver that won't cost us money.

"We shouldn't be giving farmers cash for farms that already belong to the council. Giving a farmer aged 55 or under £50,000 is disgraceful when we have other property assets we could sell at no cost to the taxpayer."

Members of the council's environmental services committee approved the cash compensation deal after hearing the council had had little success in persuading tenants to leave their farms without any financial incentive.

But Coun Aston fumed: "Farmers are already getting Government hand-outs, but we shouldn't be giving them council taxpayers' money to help them out."

Mr Moore said the council stood to benefit from getting hold of money from farm sales earlier because a pound today was worth more than it would be in a year's time.

He said: "Compensating a tenant to go should give us a better deal than selling to the tenant.

"I don't want to comment on the morals - these farms are owned by the public and they are getting access to a capital asset earlier than they would have done."

Mr Moore said compensation pay-outs could vary between £12,000 and £50,000, depending on the tenant's age and yearly rental.

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