The Parish Council agreed its precept at a meeting on 8th January. This is the element of your Council Tax that goes towards Capel Parish Council and makes up the majority of its funding. In 2020/21 a Band D household will pay about £68 pounds a year to the Parish Council to fund its services or around £1.30 a week. This represents an increase of around £8 a year for each Band D household.
This is a relatively large increase of just over 18%. The vast majority of the increase is necessary to provide a sinking fund so that the Parish Council can help fund the fight the proposals in the draft Local Plan. It may well be necessary to pay lawyers, planning and traffic consultants if some or all of the present proposals survive as far as the Public Enquiry stage and councillors have expressed a wish to make a contribution to this, alongside other local groups such as Save Capel.
The Council is also looking to take a lead in drawing up a Neighbourhood Plan, and this would also require funding.
Councillors hope the majority of parishioners who oppose the plan to build 4300 homes in the Parish will see this as a good use of their money. (If the sinking fund is taken out of the calculation the precept would only rise by just over 1% – below the rate of inflation). If the sinking fund is not used, then the money can be returned to parishioners in the form of a reduced precept in future years.