Oakham Town Council Mayor, Cllr Joyce Lucas Said Councillors were wrong not to increase council tax

Oakham Town Council Mayor, Cllr Joyce Lucas Said Councillors were wrong not to increase council  tax.

Cllr Lucas was absent from the full council meeting at which all members, accept her deputy Cllr Charles Haworth decided to reject a proposed budget that would require the council to increase the precept paid by the public by 2.9%

At this weeks planning meeting she expressed her disappointment, she said this would leave the council with no money to spend next year. She appeared not to have a clue about how much the proposed increase was. Something you might expect the chairman of a small council to know.

I reminded her, we were told it is expected the council will underspend again this year therefore increasing the councils reserves to around £60,000 so we did have some money to spend.

Next year we will be spending around a quarter of the budget on new play equipment for Royce Recreation Ground. The Council agreed this spend recently before setting the budget and a detailed presentation was given by the Clerk as to how this would be funded. Strangely the assistant Clerk said at the same meeting the Clerk is now considering recommending taking out a loan to pay for this equipment.

It is clear to me the Council does not have a clear understanding of it financial position and is constantly approving spending on future projects before any sensible budget has been set.

We were asked to approve a budget for parks and planning nothing had changed since it was deferred from the last meeting.

A sum had been budgeted to for the Mayors Chain, I am not sure what this has to do with parks and planning?

The matter of the budget was deferred again. I suggested the Chairman and Deputy Chairman of parks sat down with the few lucky councillors who decide most of what goes on at the council and actually plan what they want to do next year and then present that request to the small group who are working on a strategic plan for the full council so it can form part of the full councils overall budget.