Barbara Lockwood fully intends to become the next council tax “martyr” to be jailed. As another year of rises above the level of inflation hits pensioners, the 74-year-old former care worker is withholding £403.47 from Broadland District Council in Norfolk.

She has been summonsed to appear in court this week. “I have no intention of paying them,” she said. “I get no benefits, like many. This year’s rises are absolutely disgraceful when you consider that pensioners are still waiting for a respectable increase in their pensions.”

Mrs Lockwood took a decision to withhold any increases on her council tax in 2003. Since then she has tried to pay £50 a month to the council. “I thought that was a suitable sum,” she said. “The council accepted the £50 for a month or two, then they complained and I said they weren’t having another penny.”

She has been served with a summons to attend Norwich Magistrates’ Court on Thursday for a committal hearing. She is faced with a stark choice: pay £403.47, plus £35 for the cost of the hearing, or face jail.

She says that she will not give up. “I lost my husband, Russell, in 2003 and he agreed with what I was doing. It has been going on so long now that I’m not stopping. The increases are completely wrong. The services are going down but the taxes are going up.”

Sylvia Hardy, 75, who was jailed for two days in 2005 for refusing to pay a portion of the tax, said that she was among 90 pensioners in Devon who were planning to withhold their council tax in its entirety. Half were willing to go to prison.

“I have received my final demand,” she said. “I’m expecting a summons from Exeter City Council any day now. I’m not saying I can’t pay; but that I won’t pay. I don’t want to go to prison, but if it comes to that then I will. The increases are completely wrong. All my costs are going up but my pension is being swallowed up by the inflation-busting rises.”

Alfred Ridley, 73, said that he would pay the tax this year, but only if South Northamptonshire Council allowed him to do so in 12 instalments, rather than the usual 10. Mr Ridley, a retired vicar, spent 28 days in a maximum-security prison after refusing to pay £63 — the rise above inflation of his 2005 tax.

“The tax is now rising out of proportion to our income a great deal,” he said.

“It has got so high that it is harming my quality of life. It has to change into something which considers people’s ability to pay.”

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