The new Somerset West and Taunton Council officially came into being on Monday – and immediately faced a major banking problem.

More than 7,000 Council Tax and business rates payers in the former West Somerset Council area who should have had their direct debit payments taken from their accounts found the money was still there.

When the problem surfaced, an announcement appeared on the new council’s website on Monday reading:

“Urgent for the attention of residents of the former West Somerset Council area. Your direct debit for your Council Tax or business rates payment for April 1 may not have been collected or returned to your account from our bank.

“We are working to rectify the situation and will pass on more details when we have them.”

The problem did not affect people in the former Taunton Deane Borough Council area.

A council spokesman told the Free Press that a total of 7,028 accounts had been affected by an error in the NatWest bank’s BACs system, and that the bank had apologised for any inconvenience.

The error was due to the bank “failing to process some changes in time”, and denied any connection between the error and the new council’s transformation programme.

The council said it expected all the payments to have been sorted by yesterday (Thursday).