Thatcham Town Council approves budget and precept increase
Thatcham Town Council has approved its draft budget for the next fiscal year, as well as a tax increase.
The council proposed an 8.75 per cent increase to the Band D tax base at £95.60 per annum, from £87.90 per annum, providing a proposed precept of £885,361.
It is anticipated that there will be an overspend of £18,109 at the current financial year end which will be funded from the council’s general fund working balance.
The draft was based upon the assumptions that there would be an increase of 10 per cent in market, cemetery and allotment charges, a five per cent increase in hall charges and a ten per cent inflationary increase on external service contracts.
The council voted, on recommendation from officers, to increase the current allotment maintenance deposit from £20 to £60 per plot to reflect contractors’ fees for remedial works to relinquished plots.
The draft was also based on the assumption that the council newsletter would reduce from four to two editions per year and a removal of voluntary contributions to Thatcham Library.
Councillor Jeremy Cottam (Lib Dem, Thatcham North East) thanked chairman of the council’s finance and general purposes committee Mike Cole and officers for their days and weeks of work on what he called a very arduous process.
He said: “We said we were going to keep it below inflation and we are and we really warmly welcome that.
“It’s really close to my heart because people are finding that their expenses in their shopping and their lives and the cost of living is all going up and we need to try and make sure that we don’t add to that burden more than we have to.”
The council has set aside £17,000 in grant money for local charity organisations to bid for if needed.
Town council leader Lee Dillon (Lib Dem, Thatcham North East) also expressed his support of the proposed budget.
“It has been a challenging year,” he said.
“We have been able to go into a new financial year with a below increase inflation because of the due diligence and the hard stewardship of the budget that we delivered in this financial year.
“Lots of the inflationary increases that have come in are outside of our control whether they be the energy costs or linked to increases in contracts or even links to staff wages which again we sit outside of the ability to agree that as a council.
“It delivers us a professional officer base to be able to deliver our projects so a proportionate budget but one that is still ambitious.
“We are running the town by limiting council tax rises and using reserves; we are being prudent and forward thinking.”
* In this week's Newbury Weekly News, the headline for this story says 'Band D precept to go up by £95.60'. This is incorrect and should have read 'Band D precept to go up to £95.60'. We apologise for the error.