Parish Council Budget Update – Feedback Requested
You will read in the PC minutes that budget discussions are underway in the Parish Council, and we must complete and submit our proposal to RBWM by mid-January. This is where we need Parish Participation.
It will come as no surprise, that parish maintenance costs are expected to increase significantly due to inflationary pressures that will outweigh the current precept allocation for the village for next year and beyond. A few years ago, the Parishioners asked the Parish Council to adopt the Nature Reserve (still not formally completed), which will have an impact on our expenditure. This is being carefully reviewed to ensure that the impact of this will be acceptable. We must also be realistic that RBWM is in financial difficulty and therefore likely to reduce some of the services we enjoy today. For example; cutting of verges etc. in the summer months. This will likely see more pressure on us to take care of the village outlook going forward, particularly around addressing concerns about poor visibility lines on roads or at junctions, or even in the general appearance of the parish.
WSTL has the lowest precept across the Borough, at £29,000 for 2023/24. As a comparison, Hurley is at £34,000. The current precept equates to £41.95 pa for a Band D house with the range across the Borough scaling from £35.60 to £102.33. Band A rates are half of Band D and Band H are almost twice as much.
Looking forward, the Parish Council want to ensure value for money on anything that is spent on the village, so to put things into perspective as an example; a £10,000 increase in parish spending, equates to an additional c£14 pa for a Band D house. Therefore, it is important that we don’t make these decisions on our own, and we gather feedback from the Parishioners. Can we ask all of you to consider the three questions below please?
- Do Parishioners want to continue with a low precept and accept that less can be done around the village?
- Or, would you accept an increase in the precept so that more can be spent on maintaining and enhancing the village environment?
- If you are happy with an acceptable household increase, what other investments would you like to see us make in the village? Please bear in mind the PC does have limited powers
Please provide us feedback about this important topic by the 15th December by either speaking to one of the Parish Councillors directly or you can email me at sarahg@wslpc.uk or call me on 07887 510819. Our goal is to go with the majority view.
Best Regards
Sarah Goodchild, Parish Councillor