ESTIMATED figures suggesting the annual budget received by castles and museums and heritage in Mon-mouthshire is £1.1m are "grossly exaggerated," says Chepstow's deputy mayor.

Town councillor Ned Heywood has spoken out about the £1.1m annual budget which Cllr Graham Down claims the department receives, in his budget report which was referred to during consultation meetings around Monmouthshire recently.

Cllr Heywood says the museums' annual budget is actually £674,000 gross and £596,000 net. Yet Cllr Down insists his figures are correct. Cllr Heywood said: "They are putting out a figure which is wrong. My concern is that the county council has got a definite budget problem. It's gone to public consultation to see what we should cut, but unfortunately the one figure which I know about is castles and museums, which is grossly exaggerated.

"They say there is a £1.1m budget and are asking people to make decisions over figures which are grossly inaccurate. They have put out thousands of sheets with wrong figures. At best it's a cock-up, at worst it's a conspiracy because castles and museums is the third on the list for possible savings."

Cllr Heywood also saw the information provided to the public about the department as inaccurate as consultation papers state 'castles museums and heritage' and he says there are no heritage department in Monmouth-shire.

Andrew Helme, curator of Monmouth museum, said: "There seems to have been some concern with the figures put out to the public which the museum spends.

"We don't know what the extra money represents. There is no heritage, it's really a museum service. There are four museums in Monmouthshire - two happen to be in castles."

Cllr Graham Down insisted the figures used for museums and castles during the consultation period were correct and forwarded the break-down printed below of the figures to the Free Press.