The Parish precept is the budget that the Parish Council gets from East Suffolk Council and is collected as part of the Council Tax bill issued by East Suffolk Council. The precept is set by the Parish Council and currently is about 4% of the total council tax bill.
At their 13th January 2020 meeting Finance and General-Purpose committee agreed to recommend a precept of £70,000 to the Parish Council. Following an Extraordinary Environment and Leisure committee meeting on 15th January 2020th it was suggested that an additional £3,000 be added to cover drainage works. The recommendation of £73000 was accepted by the Parish Council on 20th January 2020. This represents an increase of £13,000 from the previous year. This will mean that for a Band D property, the Wickham Market Parish Council household element of the precept will be £89.23 per annum which is an increase of £15.89 on the previous year; this represents a monthly increase of £1.32.
The reason for this increase is that, in addition to the routine inflation costs, there are a number of new expenses which the Parish Council have to address. These are:
Maintenance of The Church Pightle, such as grass cutting and tree management. The Church Pightle is the public greenspace lying between the churchyard and Church Terrace. This land is due to be transferred to the Parish from Suffolk County Council in the next few months.
Renovation works for the village sign on The Hill.
Drainage works for the Simon’s Cross playing fields and the Village Hall car park.
In addition we have added £500 to the budget for climate change emergency funding. The Parish Council will be liaising with the public further on this matter.
The cost of the drainage works is currently unknown but to cater for this a provisional sum of £3000 has been added to the budget.
R J Jenkinson
Chairman
Wickham Market Parish Council
January 2020
For further information go to: wickhammarket.onesuffolk.net
For queries contact WMPC Clerk Jo Peters: wickhamparishclerk@gmail.com
