We have been working to respond to the objections to the town council proposal that we have seen and heard on SM, MSM and in meetings. We have been responding through A Voice for Whitstable in all formats and in our leaflet which is currently being delivered to all households.
By far the most frequently cited objection is cost and the precept.
We want to tackle this head-on. The likely cost to a Band D household is £60 to £80 a year which averages out at less than £7 a month. Over a third of households are single person so get the 25% discount and receipt of varying degrees of benefits leads to other discounts through the Council Tax Support Scheme.
But this cost is real and the timing is terrible economically, but it probably always is.
The biggest thing for me is that it is the one bit of tax where I know exactly where it will go, to Ct5, and nowhere else. It’s important to know also that Local councils - PCs, TCs and Community Councils - can access significant funds each year in addition to the precept paid by households, to fund valuable projects. This means that our tax can be supplemented through intelligent application for other funds, some of which are only available to local councils.
This year, for example -
Community Ownership Funds - Local (parish and town) councils nationwide, including in Kent, have successfully secured around £4.5 million from this central government fund. It supports local people in saving, developing, or restoring local community assets, such as libraries, town and village halls, pubs, nature reserves, and garden projects. Only local councils or certain local voluntary organisations may apply. Leybourne PC in near West Malling Kent has bought an ancient woodland to conserve it for nature and local use through a COF grant of £120k.
Parish Council Winter Support Grant - is a KCC scheme using central government funding and providing grants to Parish Councils to deliver local initiatives supporting people in financial hardship. These are small grants, up to £2k, exclusive to Local Councils.
Neighbourhood Portion of the CIL - developer contribution to infrastructure paid to the district council (CCC). A meaningful proportion of CIL funds - known as the neighbourhood portion - is allocated to the local area where a development takes place to spend on infrastructure. This amounts to 15% of receipts and increases to 25% in areas with a Neighbourhood Development Plan in place. Where development takes place in an area with a PC or TC, the neighbourhood portion will be allocated to them.
Active travel - Perhaps our favourite example of local success is this from Faversham TC where they have worked in partnership with KCC and Swale district to access central government funding of £1m for a cross town walking route to make walking safer, easier and more pleasant. https://favershamtowncouncil.gov.uk/active-travel/cross-town-walking-route/
From the examples we have seen locally, this extra funding can amount to 30 to 40% on top of the precept.
What can we get from a Town Council?
Our website is full of examples and it’s a fact that what LCs do varies hugely. For me a big one is a community space. We’d need an office for the Town Clerk and team, an open reception area and a public meeting space (or good mobile tech so the town council can meet in different venues around Ct5) for the elected councillors to meet in public.
Faversham has volunteers staffing its reception. They tell us that they mostly sign-post people re how to access public services. They also have a space to meet for local groups and regular consultations on things like health and walking routes - basically anything the TC is consulting on, with info and the chance to give immediate in person feedback. We have loads of venues in Ct5 that could provide this venue or venues and we hope they will be chosen correctly with an open tender process.
Here are some examples of what other Town Councils in East Kent do:
Make grants to local organisations. Faversham do this through a lottery.
Westgate operate recreation grounds and leisure/sports facilities.
Folkestone run eight small parks and memorials.
Broadstairs and St Peters handle sea front shelters and a bandstand.
Sandwich’s Guildhall houses a museum, visitor information centre and a wedding/function venue.
Folkestone, Dover, Deal, Sandwich and Ramsgate manage Visitor/Tourist Information Centres.
Ramsgate and Faversham oversee their neighbourhood plans.
Faversham has community buses
More generally Town Councils :
Have the role of statutory planning consultee - that’s in law.
Run allotments.
Open their town halls up as community hubs.
Help local organisations through direct funding and support and advise them on how to apply for external funding.
Provide public toilets - sometimes vulnerable to district council cuts.
Provide community rangers or wardens.
Help streets and paths to stay safe, clean and pleasant to walk or cycle along.
Run markets.
Create neighbourhood and other plans (tourism, economic, climate action, traffic, etc).
Maintain parks, gardens and planters.
Clean streets and monuments.
I don’t know about you but I feel that I’ll need these services and venues more and more as I get older and can’t afford to lose them.
As one Town Clerk said to me recently - It may be that the service/venue will close unless the town council takes it over.
Bernadette Fisher for the Town Council Group
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