Alderley Edge Parish Council agreed at this week's meeting to increase the precept for the next financial year by 33% from £90,000 to £120,000.
The precept is the part of your council tax which is charged by the Parish Council and the increase will mean that the precept will rise from £34.04 to £45.57 for a Band D property.
In addition to the £120,000 they will raise in tax next financial year, the Parish Council expect to carry over £142,400 from this year (money allocated to the development of the festival hall which was not spent) and earn £37,000 from the Festival Hall - giving them a total budget of £299,400.
Attached is the summary of the Parish Council's proposed budget for 2012/13 which shows that £195,000 of the outgoings is allocated to the Festival Hall, which represents 74.4% of the total predicted costs (£262,000).
Operational costs for the hall are budgeted at £70,000 and £75,000 is being allocated to build a new entrance. Legal costs are budgeted at £5000 and there is a contingency of £40,000 should a new roof be required.
Income from the hall is budgeted at £37,000 though the Parish Council feels this could be exceeded because they are applying for an alcohol license enabling them to earn revenue from the bar.
Cllr Joseph Bergin, Chairman of the Finance Committee commented "Until there is significant expenditure on the hall we have got to be realistic about income."
New additions to this year's budget include £5000 towards celebrations for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. The Parish Council are looking at lots of ways of marking the occasion, including closing London Road to hold a street party and something more permanent such as commissioning a piece of art or a statue.
£5000 is also included in next years budget to support Homewatch schemes.
Cllr Mike Williamson explained "There are 33 schemes in the village. I have asked for a list of the streets names to see if there are any glaring omissions because maybe we can help set some up."
Alderley Edge Parish Council took over management of the Festival Hall in 2009 following a review, carried out by consultants on behalf of Macclesfield Borough Council in 2005, concluded that the hall was underused, losing money and out of touch with the modern community.
With the Festival Hall under threat from being demolished and sold to developers for affordable housing, the Parish Councillors fought to save it. The hall was built for the annual Alderley Edge Festival in the 1930's, as a community facility.
Click here to view the Statement of Accounts covering the period from April 1st 2011 to March 31st 2012.
Comments
Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below.
2. Hi Vin; it still costs you less than £1.00/week
Duncan Herald
When you ask a simple straight forward reasonable question directed at the Parish Council, do not expect a straight answer or any answer at all. This is Alderley Edge. Are you new here?! Any of the Parish Councillors could answer you. I expect they will say they can do whatever they want and they only need to speak to the community at election time. That is more or less what they do.
I have my own question to the Parish Council which I do not expect them to answer, but I shall try my luck. If the new medical centre goes ahead and we lose our fine entrance to the Festival Hall and a few parking places and the quite useful council chamber/meeting room and a full set of toilets suitable for the hall, what do we get by way of financial recompense? How much money do we receive at the start and how much do we receive in annual rent?
A partial answer for you. The present entrance will be lost when the new Medical Centre is built. At this time, the present entrance (in my opinion) looks fine from a distance, but up close it is tatty. The intention is to put a new entrance to the side (on the left as you face the Hall), which will include new toilets and a new reception area.
In the longer term, there will be many improvements to the interior of the Hall and as there is currently a waste of much space internally, we may not actually lose much.
As to the Council Chamber; the Parish Council may just have to do wothout!
Hopefully in the new plans, there will be litttle or no loss of parking spaces.
I do try to answer comments/questions on a.e.com but try to restrict myself only to the things that I can answer.
John , I see your point about questions , am not that new here , 25 yrs or so .... did once try and stand for council, but i wear wrong colour shirt :-)
Its Cllr Herald, right? Are you aware of any financial recompense that we will receive for the construction of the new medical centre?
the precept is decided upon by the Parish Council and no-one else has to approve it; tho' if we set it at £500,000 I imagine there might be Parish Councilors swinging from the trees!
Osmosis is the diffusion of water molecules, from a solution of less negative water potential to a solution of more negative water potential (once a biologist, always a biologist!).
Vin; its not the colour of your shirt, its your political affiliation...best of luck with Milliband minimus, your temporary leader.
The Festival Hall was returned from Macclesfield Borough into Parish Council ownership in March 2009 for £1.
The main reason was so that we could provide the only FREE space to facilitate a new fit-for-purpose Medical Centre for the people of Alderley Edge.
The second reason was so that we could upgrade the hall (to include a new entrance) and we negotiated a dowry of £300k to cover the capital cost of improvements. Who did the negotiating with Macclesfield Borough? I did, and the Parish Councillors supported the outcome.
Who approves our budget? The elected members of the Parish Council in public meetings, advertised and open to all.
the sum of £75k is an informed guess...we had to put a sum in.to the budget. No decision has yet been taken as to who/how payment involves; but there will have to be a new entrance whatever? Negotiations are still on-going; but if we had not begun to prepare, would you not have, at a later date, criticised the lack of preparation? We have been negotiating with the PCT for some years; i.m.h.o. it is like arm wrestling with an octopus covered in oil! In your comment above, you ask if we are to get "any financial recompense... for the construction of the new madical centre"...the village is (I hope) to get a brand-new, state of the art medical centre; something that will benefit the inhabitants of the village/parish tremendously...so is it possible that asking for financial recompense brings to mind 'horse' 'gift' 'looking'& 'mouth' ?
Others 'out there' reading all this would be most welcome to comment as I'd like to know what you think!
If so what is the actual operating income of the Festival Hall over the last couple of years (income for people paying for its use)?
I presume the long term feasibility of the Festival Hall is going to be reliant to some extent on the hall getting used a lot more and generating a meaningful income. I appreciate the proposed improvements should translate into a meaningful increase in operating income, but it would be very interesting to know what it has been making in recent years.
Lisa has taken all the figures, but from memory, our income is around £35k to £40k and about half of this is people actually hiring the hall.
The hire rates are designed to enable local use at reasonable prices, bearing in mind the present facilities.
We aim to upgrade the facilities; the £300k is intact, ready for use by us in a capital project.
When we upgrade the facilities we need to do two things; firstly to maintain the local use at "local" prices, and secondly, we need to attract "premium" rate users who will pay premium" prices.
The Hall was about to be sold by Macclesfield for any use, including redevelopment, and we decided as a parish council that we wanted to maintain a local facility.
I don't have all the figures. I requested a copy of the budget proposal for 2012/2013 and the summary of operations for the festival hall. I only received the budget proposal which just has the top line figure of £37,000 for the festival hall income.
I've also asked whether the £37,000 predicted income for the festival hall (2012/13) includes a contribution from CEC and rent from the two phone masts, as it did last year. (£15,000 from CEC and £4,500 from the masts). This hasn't yet been confirmed.
If I've read your email correctly you are saying that the Parish Council have the £300,000 dowry ready to use, so is this separate from the £15,000 dowry which I was told is provided by CEC every year, for 10 years from when you took over the hall, to help you cover the costs of running it?
The breakdown is what you have just quoted!! The difference of £37k minus £15k minus £4.5k is the lettings income.
The £15k is annually for 10 years from 2009/10 and is an operational contribution. The £300k is separate, it is a capital sum which is readily available when we have a project, and to save you a further email, we have both of those covered in a legal agreement.
Frank Keegan
That's how I understand it. The NHS will not pay anything for taking over a chunk of the Festival Hall. They will demolish the front and entrance and build a Medical Centre at their cost and will occupy the building on a rent free basis? It does not seem entirely fair. I do not have a great problem with the rent free part. We will get an upgraded medical practice in a location that suits us. What happens to the George Street buildings, by the way, is none of our business. Whoever owns them will sell or re-rent as with any other property.
What should concern the community is the quite large sum of money that the Parish Council want to spend on a new entrance to the FH made necessary by the construction of the medical centre. Any competent negotiator would have tried hard to secure this money from the Primary Care Trust as part of the deal. Maybe the PC tried and failed. Now, the PC want to finance this from the precept when there are ample other funds available to it
We learn there is a pot of 300K available to finance capital projects and another 140K or so underspent by the PC from the last two years. The PC plan to spend 80K on a new entrance, a capital project, which is necessary expenditure because of the new medical centre project. So why do the PC need a 30 K = 33% increase in the precept, or any increase at all? It does not make sense.