NTC Service Budget, brace yourself for an 11% increase in the precept Options

[Simon Kirby]

Newbury Town Council are to approve their service budget on Monday night at the Community Services Committee, and the draft is available in the agenda papers.

• Expenditure rises 13.0%, and income falls 3.2%. With an inflationary rise in wages that'll produce something like an 11% increase in the precept.
• Maintenance of the cemeteries is to be outsourced. There isn't enough published detail to say what affect this will have on the precept but it appears the contract adds around £62k to the cemetery costs so it's not obvious that this will actually save money.
• There is no extra sponsorship for the Christmas Lights with the Town Centre Partnership still contributing just £1k compared to the £50k cost to the tax-payer. The budget says the TCP contribute £5k, but the Council give the TCP £4k of this! Planning for next year's switch on event is underway with the Council keen to cooperate with Standard Life Investments / Parkway development "to ensure effective retail integration", so perhaps they'd also like to pick up the bill.
• Costs for the market go up 6.2% but charges for pitches increase by a sub-inflationary 2.5% so the current £17.5k cost to the tax-payer of providing the market looks set to increase by more than £4.5k.
• Good news for the bowls club who's rent stays the same as last year, which was the same as the year before that, and the year before that, ...
• Allotment rents go up for non-pensioners by 3.75% to pay for a 10% pensioner discount, so altogether a 2% real-terms reduction in allotment revenue. No indication yet that the Council are willing to discuss how self-management can save the tax-payer the £43k direct cost of the service.
• The cost of the Town Hall is the most out-of-control with the nett direct costs increasing by over 90% as a result of the difficulty in letting the parts of the building that the town council doesn't use and the spiraling costs of maintaining an old building that is ill suited to its present use, so expect to see a 12% increase in the current £59k cost of providing the town hall.