News on the budget for Broomfield Parish Council

You will see from the chart here the main areas where the Parish Council budget is spent. It illustrates the good work that we are doing and our plans for next year.

As you can see in the red section, we have expanded what we provide for many people at the Village Hall. The Village Hall is continuously let out with very few small gaps. Providing a venue for many organisations who offer support to our community.

The innovations are successful, attracting 64 people to a recent weekly coffee morning, with six Parish Councillors talking with residents. The weekly warm hub has also been very popular with 30-40 people regularly attending. A hot meal is provided and those people who can, donate to support prolonging the scheme beyond Essex County Council funding.

The physical parish of Broomfield has been changed drastically, however. We will lose Beaulieu and Channels, a total of 534 houses in May. They will now have their own parish. We are sorry to lose them, but City Councillors voted unanimously to make this wide reaching change.

The consequence of this is that we have a much smaller income than we have ever had. We have had the difficult task to make a decision to either cut a lot of services or raise some money through Council Tax. We have cut the precept (Council Tax for Parish) sum, in real terms, for several years before this.

Many of the services we provide are essential. The yellow slice above is about the Places/Environment, some of that is about the safety of trees, maintaining bus stops, village greens or keeping the village tidy. The upkeep of the very successful playground is also included in this slice.

As you will be aware inflation has affected costs for all of us. As our income has drastically reduced costs are going up.

Rather than cut or reduce any of the very popular and necessary services we provide we have made the very difficult decision to ask you for a small amount more each week, 72p for the band D rate.

Not everyone pays full Council Tax. There are discounts and exemptions available:
https://www.chelmsford.gov.uk/council-tax/problems-paying-your-council-tax/discounts-and-exemptions/
For instance single people get a 25% discount, full-time students are exempt.

Some households will not pay Council tax at all, in fact the number of households who are exempt has gone up this year which reduces our income further.

We are able to make some savings, for instance the Neighbourhood Plan which has been in development is now being finalised and so expenditure on that will cease. We have also taken more steps to save money, we are installing solar panels at the Village Hall. The Village Hall is a charity but generating some of their own electricity will mean less reliance
on Parish Council grants. The Village Hall is now also less reliant on grants from us as they regularly and successfully apply for grants for many projects. In the current year almost £20,000.

Despite all of this hard work we still need more money to carry on in a similar way.
The Council Tax demand will arrive on your doorsteps very soon. The Parish Council portion is very small and we hope that you will understand why we took this very difficult decision.
Cllr Margaret Bleet, Chair