Villagers paying less to parish council

Residents living in two villages near Cannock will see the council tax paid to their parish council cut down next year.

Heath Hayes and Wimblebury Parish Council voted to keep their precept, their share of the council tax bill, at £58,400.

This means householders in council tax Band D will pay £13.66 next year. This is down 10p on last year and a 27 per cent reduction or a cut of £5 over the last six years when the amount was £18.63. The drop, despite the total precept staying the same, is because there are more houses in the parish compared to last year.

Parish clerk, Ray Smythe said this year's reduction was due to targets for savings set for the running of the Heath Hayes Cabin and Hayes Green Community Centre, both acting as places for parish's various groups can meet.

The council has a target of making 25 per cent saving in mileage claims, 40 per cent saving in postage costs and 25 per cent saving in photocopying in the budget for the cabin. While its targets for the community centre budget is a 25 per cent saving in mileage claims, 33 per cent in postage costs and 25 per cent in photocopying.

Mr Smythe said: "What happened was in this financial climate, we decided to go over every part of our expenditure to look at savings.

"Now we photocopy as a last resort. I am now sending agendas by email to councillors to read before meetings so we don't print out.

"We spent £70,000 just over a year ago on setting up the community centre, which is now used seven days a week and we have managed to do that and reduce the precept over the last six years because we are trying to run efficiently.

"Postage is not a huge saving in itself but with everything added up it is."

The council has also just approved its largest ever, single handout of grants totalling £7,979.63 to 28 parish groups.