THE leader of Amber Valley Borough Council says a report into whether the area's armed forces could be exempted from council tax will not be ready until May at the earliest.

The idea was discussed at a meeting of the borough council and the report is being compiled for its cabinet.

The idea came from Labour opposition leader Councillor Paul Jones, who said the authority could be first in the country to make the move.

But council leader Stuart Bradford said a lot of work was now needed on the report before a decision could be made.

He said: "We need, for example, to see how many members of the armed forces we actually have in Amber Valley and the effect it would have on finances.

"To be the best of our knowledge, if we were to go ahead with this we would need to give a full council tax refund to each soldier each year."