January Chairmans message
Happy new year to all from Odcombe Parish Council.
It’s obviously a quiet period of the year in many respects but there are a number of things to report.
We mentioned a number of forthcoming improvements in our October newsletter that are awaiting new budgets at Somerset Council. These included measures to reduce parking problems on junctions in a couple of areas in the village, the removal of the unsightly plastic bollards on the Camp Road and so on.
We are happy to report that the replacement of 12 old street signs around the village has been completed. Many of these old signs were so worn that they were illegible but we were pleasantly surprised when we were told that that they would be replaced at no cost to ourselves. The new signs are at various locations around the village including on Old Road, Chapel Hill, Dray Road and so on. Should you wish to see them again, apparently the old signs have now been relocated to the Somerset Rural Life Museum in Glastonbury.
December is the budget-setting month for the Parish Council as we are required to report the precept that will be charged for the following year. The precept is the amount of each resident’s council tax that is allotted to fund the work of the Parish Council directly in the village. It was a complicated discussion this year as it is obvious that the costs of services that the Parish Council buys on behalf of residents have risen significantly. Even simple things such as insurances for our recreation ground, repairs to play equipment, grounds maintenance services and so on now cost significantly more than in previous years. If the Parish Council were to maintain the precept at last year’s level we would be unable to afford the services to the village that we currently provide. We would also need to spend the limited reserves that we have – a situation which would obviously not be great for the future. A further factor was very important in our decision making. Mike Hewitson, our County Councillor attended our meeting and explained that he advised all of his parish councils to ensure that they have strong reserves in place because of the cuts that are are currently taking place at Somerset Council. We have therefore increased Odcombe Parish Council’s precept for the forthcoming year by 26% which equates to £19.77 over the year or the equivalent of 38 pence weekly. This calculation is for a Band ‘D’ property which is the median household in the village.
Unfortunately, this precept level does not significantly change the financial outlook for the parish council – but it does enable us to maintain the services that we currently provide and ensure that we have funds in place to respond to the changes that are taking place at county council level and elsewhere.
We have also mentioned in previous posts that we are in the process of updating the parish council website. The existing site has now been in place for over 5 years and we are intending the new site to act as a much more useful information ‘hub’ with a news feed, a link to our Facebook page and direct information about local road closures and so on.
We expect that the new site will go live in February of this year. We would like to express our thanks in advance to Ed Gorochowski of Hedgehog Photographic for his kindness in allowing the use of his stunning images of Odcombe on the site ! Dave Peters
