MORE than £300,000 in unpaid council tax and business rates has been written off in just nine months, it has emerged.

Worcester City Council has come under criticism after a 52 per cent rise in write-offs following a sudden spike in unpaid debts.

Fresh data for the nine-month period from April to the end of December has revealed how £319,000 was scorched off the balance sheet.

That compares to £209,000 in the same nine-month period of 2013 and £277,000 in the whole of the 2013/14 financial year.

The shock rise was mainly due to a large rise in write-offs in the three-month period before Christmas, with council chiefs saying firms going bust accounted for most of it.

Your Worcester News can reveal how the new data means £2.2 million has now been written off since 2010.

Councillor Richard Boorn, Labour's finance spokesman, said: "This has always been a bug bear of mine, we did a lot of work to try and get this down.

"The main concern is not your average man on the street but businesses, when you run a business if they don't pay you don't let them have any goods.

"It seems to me though that no consideration is being given to them, I'm concerned that we appear to be letting the debts build up to such levels.

"It just seems to have become acceptable that it spirals out of control."

The Conservative leadership has called the rise "an anomaly" but insists the write-offs can be chased up if new details come to light.

There can be many reasons why people don’t pay bills, but in terms of businesses it tends to be because they’ve gone bust.

When it comes to council tax it can be down to money problems, people moving house or making themselves impossible to trace, or death.

The council says write-offs are a last resort, and in all cases their details are kept on file permanently so if any new details come to light, each one can still be revisited.

Councillor Chris Mitchell, the cabinet member for finance, said: "Around 10 per cent of these are for council tax and the rest business rates, which is mainly due to companies becoming insolvent.

"It's a bit of a blip but the figures aren't indicate of anything.

"It is not ideal but by writing them off now it doesn't mean we can't chase them up again if any new details come back."

The council is currently examining moves being trialled other parts of the country to see if company directors can be chased up for previous debts belonging to old, defunct businesses.