John Sutcliffe criticised the 18.3% underspend re-emphasising his belief that some of the money could have been used to fix Hillside's crumbling roads.

But Mr May, convener of infrastructure services, whose remit includes roads, has now said that discussions are ongoing to improve planning of the budget and said: "although technically an underspend the money has now been spent."

Mr Sutcliffe said: "An underspend of £1.739 million on a budget of £9.5 million is a short fall of 18.3 percent. Hardly a sum one could easily miss in the accounts.

"In reality we have potholes that need repairing. The council has the money and while we are given all the reasons why this cannot be done, the holes are getting larger. The net result is it will take more money to repair the holes. Not the most cost effective use of the hard earned council tax we have to pay.

"I wish to thank Councillor May and his three colleagues for attending the February meeting of Hillside Community Council and the minutes of the meeting clearly show who was in attendance. Unfortunately for Councillor May no record of the roads or his apparently detailed explanation are recorded.

"Angus Council claimed to have spent £380,000 on repairs from April 07 to March 08 in the county. At this rate of spend they have 4.6 years of funds available, without dipping into the budget for years to come."

Mr Sutcliffe said that after the close of the February meeting, Mr May asked members for details of all the pot holes in time for the next meeting, but that he was unable to attend in March due to an overseas council trip to China. Councillor Mark Salmond had offered to follow this up on Mr May's return.

Mr May said: "There was "slippage" of some of last year's maintenance programme. It is however the case that most of that work has now been completed and although technically an underspend, the money has now been spent.

"Underspends on roads services budgets are taken very seriously and all are reviewed to ensure there is no negative impact.

"In the case of the reported roads underspends in the last financial year, a large part of it was due to the fact that we had to retain a considerable sum for claims related to the A92 Dundee – Arbroath Road improvement.

"The timing of payment of these claims is not in the Council's control thus this is not actually an underspend. However, in order to ensure there was sufficient money in the budget for the claims when they came in, an allowance had to be made for this."