Budget
/ Precept 2013 – 2014 fact sheet
It is more important then ever that we as a Parish
maintain a robust and realistic base budget, we have a duty to ensure
that we can as a Council support residents in what will be a tough
time in the face of changes in welfare, Housing and Council Tax
benefits.
We have a duty to ensure our local environment is
maintained and where possible enhanced, we also have a duty to the
general well-being of our residents.
With this in mind I would like to explain the proposals
which I have put forward for the 2013 – 2014 budget.
First of all I have proposed that the Voice Your Choice
budget is again frozen at £15,000 I believe that this way of
allocating funds via a public vote is the most democratic way of
funding various events and groups who deliver services in the Parish.
The feed back which I receive is overwhelmingly in support of VYC so
this is why I propose we continue it.
I have proposed that we freeze the Budget at £500 for
the Cayton & Eastfield Community bonfire night. I attended the
last one and saw many people from Eastfield at the event itself, the
competition for the posters was won by an Overdale School pupil. Is
is not just the event itself which is important, the way in which the
Schools are engaged is also of benefit to the children themselves so
I have no hesitation in proposing this.
I have proposed that the Dell rangers budget is frozen
at £15,000 I have done this to assist in keeping the Dell well
maintained now that it is an official nature reserve. More funding is
being sought via developer contributions from Middle Deepdale. By
keeping our funding in place we demonstrate an on going commitment to
this project.
I have proposed a maintenance budget of £2000 for the
skateboard park, this will represent a third of the annual cost of
maintenance, the other two thirds if this is agreed will come from
Pindar School and the Borough Council. It is vital to keep this
facility open and in good repair for the youngsters of the Parish.
I have proposed that we create a well-being budget of
£8000, this is a vague title, but by being so can be flexible and
used to support residents, some of it could be used to help
organisations to set up and run projects to support people in the
Parish for example food banks are becoming a way of ensuring some
families can actually eat, another example is the current high cost
of collecting un wanted furniture which in turn leads to fly tipping,
a budget like this could lend itself to subsidising this sort of
service so it is not as dear to have bulky items collected. It is
important that we can keep budgets like this flexible.
I have proposed that we increase the small grants budget
to £5000. I have done this in part to allow for when this Council
receives the new general power of competence, (possibly May2013) with
this new power we will be able to fund individuals for example grants
for educational matters, that sort of thing, we could do this in a
similar way to the Municipal Charities.
I have proposed that we reduce the Library activities
budget to £2500 activities can be still run on this amount and the
reduction will help to fund the above proposals.
I have proposed that we scrap the stand alone allotment
fund of £10,000 I have proposed this so the funds can be used to
fund the above proposals, I am not saying that we forget about
allotments as partial funding if an allotment was created could come
from the well-being budget, plus I do not believe that is should be
down to EPC to fund allotments on its own, others organisations
should be funding these as well.
I am in full support of the budget proposal from Cllr
Parsons to fund a dedicated CAB service in Eastfield for our
residents. I will not go into this on here as Cllr Parsons will be
explaining that herself.
All this means a budget of £66,000 is proposed for 2013
– 2014 which represents a reduction in precept of approx -2%
Cllr
Brian Simpson
Chairman
of Eastfield Parish Council
