This week town councillors agreed to increase the overall annual budget for the town by £22,422 giving a total budget of £480,334.

The overall budget includes income from grants, allotment fees, shop rents etc and of course the Town Precept (share of council tax).

The precept, the money which forms part of your council tax payment will increase from £407,500 to £440,882.

This means that the town precept will increase by £4.50 a year or 9p per week for a band D property from £97.56 to £102.06 a rise of 4.6% which is below inflation.

The increase has been offset by the increase of the number of new houses in the town.

The alternative to the increase would have been to maintain the existing budget which would have meant a degradation of services as cutbacks would have been necessary in order to fund rising insurance, utility, contractor and staff costs.

The staffing budget has been increased to allow for pay rises and to maintain the current level of staffing both at the Town Council and the Arts Centre.

COUNCIL PROJECTS
During 2023/24 the Council has been able to undertake some projects that have been on the list for a long time. These have been made possible by grant funding from Commuted Sums and UK Shared Prosperity Fund. The projects include improvement to the front of the Arts Centre, the auditorium accessibility and seating and improvements to West Green.

The Courthouse windows are being replaced. Half are being done this year. The remainder will need to be done in the next financial year or over two years depending on other projects.

Transport projects have been completed this year with the installation of the new bus shelter on Station Road.

There are still some projects on the long list – these include repair and painting of the railings round the old part of Pocklington Cemetery.

POTENTIAL BURNBY HALL COSTS
The agreed budget does not include any costs for the Burnby Hall project as these are not yet known and might not even be needed. However, if the transfer of the hall to Pocklington Town Council is agreed the council would pay for initial running costs for the community hall from existing reserves which are though to be sufficient.