Finance Report and Draft Receipts and Payments April 2021- March 2022

Finance Report – Cllr Walker

In spite of some higher-than-expected costs in some areas (IT, Website and an unpaid historic Lighting bill), expenditure over the year was below budget.

We had anticipated having to contribute to a joint local campaign to resist the Thakeham threat of tens of thousands of new houses in the area. We also allowed for some funding to challenge the (southern) routing of the East West Rail project. Neither of those was necessary although neither is off the agenda.

While the year-end cash balance (in Unity Trust Bank) appears very favourable at £63758, this sum includes an item of £7179 intended for the Challis Pond Fund. We also received two significant invoices for ‘one off’ items totalling £17750 before the year end. These were a second historic unpaid bill for lighting (£3384) and the cost of replacing the A Frame on the playground (£14186). Net of these items our year ending reserves came to £39009 compared with £30682 at the end of last year. Our auditors recommend we should keep reserves at around 50% of the precept (the Parish’s share of Council Tax) which this year is £79,276.

Anticipating significant inflationary increases in all our costs, we felt it was necessary to raise the precept for the current year by 5%.

The Lloyds Bank account contains the S106 payments received from Redrow for the start-up costs for the Village Facilities and for the Traffic Calming measures. The major item of expenditure to date has been on legal fees (£11419) relating to advice on finalising the PC’s position on the S106.

The Council continues to take a cautious and measured approach to its spending while maintaining adequate reserves in case of emergencies.

Please see summary table below

Draft Receipts and Payments April 2021 to March 2022