RYEDALE District Council had a surplus on its budget of more than £2 million last year.

At a meeting of the authority’s policy and resources committee on Thursday, some members expressed surprise at the size of the figure.

Cllr Tim Thornton said it comes after several years of cut-backs and redundancies.

He said: “We’ve lost our dog warden. We’ve lost people in the legal department. We’ve lost people in planning. We’ve lost people in environmental health.

“Has all this austerity we’ve suffered been just so we can buy a cattle market?”

Cllr Lindsay Burr added she found the amount “worrying”.

Cllr Luke Ives, chairman of the committee, said: “The budget underspend was higher than was expected. There are several reason for that across the board.”

He said that the reasons included the amount of income from planning applications being “considerably more” than anticipated.

“It’s in the statement of accounts,” he said. “I acknowledge there are opportunities to improve the flow of information to members. But I do think the underspend is a positive thing. I think this committee would be much more up in arms if we had a £2m overspend.”