Councillors are to award themselves pay rises of up to 200 per cent.

The leader of Lewes District Council is seeing her pay almost double from £6,872 to £12,376 and the deputy leader's £2,062 package is being almost trebled to £6,188.

Council tax campaigners have labelled the rises as obscene but councillors claim they are needed to make local government more accessible to people of a working age.

The basic allowance given to all councillors, including those who are not on any committees, will rise from £2,292 to £2,668 and members of the ruling Cabinet with special responsibilities will get £4,950, up from £3,436.

Small rises are also proposed for members of the council's committees and the more meetings councillors sitting on the licensing committee have to go to the more money they will get. The pay rises have been recommended by an panel of volunteers with no connection to the council.

They calculated the number of hours councillors put into their work and paid them an hourly rate of £9.70.

Council leader Ann De Vecchi said the rises reflected the amount of work councillors put in and were necessary as allowances had not been increased since 2003.

She said: "The panel's recommendations look like huge increases but it is because there hasn't been a year on year increase in some time.

"We couldn't afford higher allowances before for budget reasons. Now we have decided we have to address the issue."

She said the council was trying to make being a councillor attractive to people of a working age but this would not be possible if they lost money taking time off work to attend meetings.

She said: "It is no good just attracting retired people who can afford to be councillors, we need to reflect the communities we serve."

But Sandra Ditch, campaigner from the Sussex branch of the Is It Fair council tax campaign, said there could be no justification for such increases.

She said: "A pay rise in line with inflation would be fine but 200 per cent is ridiculous.

"I would imagine a lot of people struggling to make ends meet because of their council tax bills will be very angry about this."