Annual Parish Precept

Each year we all receive the 'council tax' demand from Shropshire and Bridgnorth councils.

Included in the bill is the precept from your Parish Council which, although by far the smallest part of the bill (at just under £24 per head in this parish), is we feel worthy of an explanation from your Parish Council members.

Our precept pays for the running and administration of this parish; costs such as maintenance of parish-owned land and property, insurance, audit fees, and printing of the newsletter. In addition our precept is covering repayments of the loan which we took out to provide the much needed new parking spaces in the centre of the village and also Solicitors fees for the land transfer from Bridgnorth District Council.

It also pays for the salary of our Parish Clerk who carries out a great deal of work in public and behind the scenes to keep our wheels running smoothly (in the case of the road repairs, quite literally!). This year we have been hit by a new adjustment from Inland Revenue in the way they require us to manage our Clerk's salary which has generated an increase of over 50% in the salary burden.

Despite these significant increases to our costs, our overall precept has risen only by 11% on last year. This cost management is due to our zero-based accounting policy (or bottom-up budgeting) which ensures that we only precept for unavoidable parish costs. This has enabled us to generate savings in other areas thus keeping the precept at what we consider to be acceptable levels. As always, any member of the Parish Council will be pleased to answer any questions on the precept or any other part of the Parish Council activities, or we would welcome you to our monthly meetings.