MEMBERS of a Lancaster band are well and truly brassed off this week after news that the council is demanding a staggering increase in their rent.

The Red Rose Youth Band, which meets three times a week in a building in Ryelands Park, has been told its rent is to rise from £600 to £1,800 a year - a 300 per cent price hike.

But the band operates as a children's music education charity, without sponsorship or membership fees, and says it cannot fund the increase.

"The only way we could pay would be to charge for membership which we definitely don't want to do as many of our members are children," says musical director and manager Robert Nelson.

Mr Nelson says the band has always had a good relationship with city councillors, who have been supportive.

"It just seems that this one department is trying to make money out of a children's charity in a very mean-spirited way," he adds.

The band moved into rooms in the former stable block of Ryelands House in 2000. Mr Nelson says it was in a 'derelict state' and targeted by vandals.

Members, including kids and volunteers, spent six months and £6,000 renovating the rooms. But the council valuer then used the improvements to increase the rent.

Because of the position of the rooms and their lack of disabled access, Mr Nelson says the council will struggle to let them to anyone else.

"The place would quickly revert back to the haunt for vandals and drug-takers that it once was," he warns.

But the council's property services department says the council is entitled to take the building's current condition into account and reflect it in the proposed rent because the band was given a 'rent free' period to repair and redecorate. Rents for commercial or business tenancies are not based on who the tenants are.