PROPOSED plans to charge the users of Weymouth’s seafront chalets £100 a licence were slammed as ‘astronomical’.

Weymouth’s seafront chalet users are now calling on borough councillors to reconsider the proposed changes.

Andy Hutchings told members of Weymouth and Portland Borough Council’s management committee plans to charge £100 for user licences was ‘excessive’.

Fellow chalet user Sheila Goodwin told the committee the proposed charge ‘could be called profiteering’ by the council.

Concerns were also raised over a proposal to reduce the length of leases from 24 months to 21.

Coun Roger Allen told fellow committee members he has leased two chalets on the seafront for a number of years.

He added: “I never really understood what happened to the fees – I paid the fees and never saw them being spent.”

He also questioned plans to increase service charges to cover costs such as rates, insurance, electricity and water.

Coun Allen also described plans to charge £100 to cover legal fees for issuing licences as a ‘bit excessive’.

Coun Brendan Webster said the council ‘should be treating chalet owners as customers of any commercial business’.

He added: “They should be making a profit and we should give a good service while making that profit.”

Coun Christine James questioned how the proposed £100 charge had been reached Committee vice-chairman, Coun Mike Goodman, said: “I can see no real justification for letting the chalets out for 21 months.”

He said many of the proposed changes could be adopted and that any later development plans to overhaul the chalets, could still be considered.

He said that without income there is a ‘real danger that by 2013 nobody will want them’.

Coun Howard Legg questioned the proposal to charge chalet users £100 for licences. He told the committee that he issues around 70 licences per year and this only costs him a ‘couple of hundred pounds’.

Coun Legg described the proposed charge as ‘astronomical’.

Councillors amended the proposal to charge chalet users £100 for licences to a charge of £50.

Members also approved plans to impose a service charge of £220 per year per chalet.

The committee also approved a proposal to enable the council to close any chalet after four weeks’ notice to undertake repairs for up to one week between March 1 and April 30.

Proposals giving chalet users one week’s notice to remove valuables prior to decoration or repair works beginning, were also voted through.