JUST SHY of £300,000 of unpaid debt and benefit overpayments have been written off by the council.

Last week Epping Forest District Council approved the writing off of all council tax and business rates debts worth more than £2,500.

Council tax worth £106,881.55 and business rates totalling £116,221.22 were deemed unrecoverable, compared to £47,806.99 and £37,425.09 respectively last year.

A further £38,368.75 of housing benefits overpayments and £14,150.39 of debt for miscellaneous items was also scrubbed out of the council's books.

A council spokesperson said: “As a matter of principle, we always try to collect unpaid debts – we owe it to all our other residents and businesses to try to ensure everyone pays their fair share.

"But there are some circumstances where the recovery of debt is either impractical or not worth the costs involved. For example if a debtor has died and there is no more money in their estate to settle, if the debtor has left the district with no reasonable chance of being traced or the debtor has been declared bankrupt or a company becomes insolvent.

"The write off figures of 0.12 per cent for Council Tax and 0.33 per cent for Business Rates are small in terms of the overall collectable amount, which is £120 million for both. We have good debt collection rates and compare strongly with most other councils.”

With the recovery of housing benefit overpayments last year for example, one of the debtors died leaving no money in their estate, three have Debt Relief Orders and the council therefore cannot legally continue with recovery action, and one is now in a care home with no income or capital to repay the debt.