IMPATIENT councillors last night laid down the law to Swindon Town Football Club insisting they would wait no longer for its debts to be paid.

Members of the cabinet outlined how the £171,000 the club owes in rent and rates is desperately needed by the council to plug holes in its own budget for education, social services and highway improvements.

Their comments came after the council's finance director Ian Thompson said that the debts were soon expected to rise above £200,000, with further rates payments due this month.

Deputy leader of the council Brian Ford (Con, Wroughton and Chiseldon) said: "Over the years, we've been extremely accommodating to Swindon Town and have acknowledged that a town of this size should have a viable football club.

"But that cannot be to the detriment of the ratepayers of the borough. This is becoming something which just keeps coming up and up and up and that has to stop."

The club wrote to the council last week to ask for more time to sort out its boardroom shuffle before honouring its debts.

Under the doomed chairmanship of Danny Donegan, the club promised the council in September that the rent debt of £106,000 would be cleared by the end of November.

It sent cheques equalling that amount post-dated to tomorrow and promised to keep up with any future payments.

It has since been revealed the club also owes £65,000 in business rates, which had not been chased up due to "human error" by staff at the much-troubled contractor, WS Atkins, and the council's finance department.

Last month, Mr Donegan's administration was forced out after the High Court ruled it had no mandate to run the club. The consortium that brought the challenge, headed by former club chairman Cliff Puffett, is expected to take over following an emergency general meeting on December 7.

But club chief executive Pete Rowe who is managing affairs at the club in the meantime, confessed to the council last week that the instability meant its accounts had been closed so cheques would bounce.

Now a high-profile meeting is set to be held between the new directors of the club and the three political leaders on the council after the EGM.

Council leader Mike Bawden (Con, Old Town and Lawn) said it was then that he and his opposing group leaders would have to make the council's position crystal clear.

He said: "If you think what £200,000 can do, it means an awful lot of teachers, a big difference to social services care and some major improvements to our roads."

Coun Garry Perkins (Con, Dorcan) added: "If they have difficulty in making a commitment to pay £200,000, you have to wonder what the viability of the club is in the scheme of football clubs these days."