PLANS to provide council information in Urdu and other ethnic minority languages have run into criticism because of fears of a huge rise in costs.

Chiltern District Council is considering a range of measures designed to make life easier for ethnic minority groups which use council services.

The measures, which include multi-lingual signing, customer service and computer information, have been recommended by the council's ethnic minorities working party.

But at the first meeting of the council's new cabinet-style executive committee on Wednesday, members expressed concern that they could be left with spiralling costs and budget cuts.

Cllr Don Phillips (Con, Little Chalfont), leader of Chiltern District Council, said if the council started to print information in Urdu it would have to do the same for every language because it could not be seen to be discriminating.

He explained: "If it's all sections of the community then you open up the flood gates.

"I'm really very concerned that if we step anywhere in this direction we can bring on extra costs we can't sustain.

"We can only do this sort of thing if we take resources off some other activity. We've got to be careful that we don't do anything that runs us up a big bill."

Cllr John Warder (Con, Chalfont St Peter Central) added: "This really should be limited in some way or another otherwise it will be very difficult to control."

A recent consultation with Chesham's Pakistani community revealed a large demand for more linguistic help from local authorities to work alongside the existing Interpreting and Translation Service run by Buckinghamshire County Council.

Increased access to interpreters, welfare benefits, advice and better information on transport services and passes have also been suggested.

Cllr Mohammed Bhatti (Con, Newtown Chesham) said after Wednesday's meeting that the Asian community in Chesham was a special case because there was real demand for extra translation services.

He added: "We are not talking about the whole community, we are talking about the people who suffer, where there is demand for it.

"The Asian community should be integrated and know what's available from the council. We should be encouraging people to use council services."