DRAFT

Minutes of the Full Council meeting held on the 15th January 2008 in the Corn Exchange Complex, Hungerford.

 

Start time:7:00pm.

Present: Cllrs P Harries [Chmn], E Cardwell, D Liddiard, R Thompson, J Booth, G Bullock, R Hudson, D Pope, T Werrell.

Minutes by: Susan Latham [RFO]

 

1. Apologies:Cllrs W Acworth, A Buckwell, R Desmeules,  M Wilson, D Holtby, P Hewer.

 

2. Declarations of Interest: None.

 

3. Discuss, propose and agree the precept for 2008/2009: Cllr Harries talked the council through the budget summary, referring to committee chairs where appropriate.

 

Cllr Hudson explained the Highways and Transport Budget of £35,350 (taking into account income of £5,000 from donations towards the Christmas lights).  Cllr Liddiard said that he thought £18,500 on Christmas Lights was fairly high, but Cllr Werrell said she had had good feedback on the lights.  Also Cllr Harries said that the Christmas Lights will be put to the public at the parish meeting. The lights are sent out to tender every year to 3 companies, but as the last years winning tender was above £10,000 then HTC has to advertise/publicise the tender for this year.  Cllr Bullock said that she supported the lights at their current level of expenditure, but that this should not increase.

 

Cllr Cardwell explained the Recreation and Amenities budget of £59,300, which was up by £5450, from the current year.  Significant items were an increase in the cost of skip hire and work to be done on the skate park.  Work has also been started in this year on the trees in St. Lawrence’s.  There is quite a lot of maintenance work to do at St. Saviour’s, but not all of it will be in the coming year.  The R&A budget includes money for a maintenance man and existing contracts will be reviewed to ensure best value is being obtained.  R&A currently have one salaried employee paid out of the Finance and General Purposes budget.  Cllr Cardwell gave a revised figure for playing field income of £5,300 and said that some income is yet to be invoiced for this current year.

 

Cllr Bullock explained the Finance and General Purposes budget of £104,415, which is up by £7,134 from this year

Items of note were:-

·        £500 for room hire for the Environment and Planning committee.

·        £500 to HEAT for environmental issues.

·        £500 extra for Pool House redecoration (an earmarked reserve needs to be built up for updating.  )

·        Insurance is up by £1,500, as it has been updated this year having not been reviewed since year 2,000. 

·        S137 payments (grants allocated to voluntary clubs) are increasing by £2,000 to £12,000.  (The £5,000 of council grants given to bigger organisations remains constant.  )

 

 

Earmarked reserves were discussed and included 2010+ money for the library garden, triangle field money for a larger equipment storage area, wall money for St Lawrence’s and a possible repayment to West Berkshire of S106 money overpaid in 2006/2007.  A reserve of £60,000 minimum is required to cover disasters. Cllr Bullock stated that the internal auditors recommended that 6 months working capital be kept in reserve and she estimated a month’s expenditure at £12,000.

 

The precept was then discussed and Cllr Werrell estimated inflation at 3%.  Cllr Thompson said that at the last Parish meeting it had been agreed that some money would go back to the town and covering the cost of inflation would keep faith with the people of the town.  Cllr Bullock urged prudence and pointed out that some expenses such as contractors would be likely to go up due to items such as increased petrol prices.  Cllr Harries pointed out that the town had benefited from 2 new playgrounds in this financial year and thought that a reduction in precept would not be prudent in the first year of a new more detailed budgeting process.  Cllr Hudson suggested bringing the precept down by £3,000 as Hungerford Town Council had a firmer financial grip; Cllr Liddiard was like-minded, but both accepted prudence.

 

Proposals and Voting

The actual amount of precept required was then discussed and the proposals were:-

 

Cllr Liddiard proposed keeping the precept the same as the current year at £178,830 and Cllr Thompson seconded this proposal.

 

Cllr Harries asked if there were any amendments and Cllr Bullock proposed an increase of 1.5% on the current year which would give a precept of £181,512 and Cllr Werrell seconded this proposal.

 

Votes were then taken for the amendment (increase of 1.5%) with 3 Cllrs voting for and 6 against.

Votes were taken for the first proposal (precept to be kept the same) and 7 Cllrs voted in favour and 2 against.

 

The proposal for no increase in the precept was carried and the precept will be set at £178,830.

 

Cllr Liddiard then proposed a vote of thanks to all those involved in preparing the budget details. 

Special thanks were given to Susan Latham, our RFO, for her hard work and time.

 

The meeting finished at 8:40pm.