HASSOCKS PARISH COUNCIL – Press Release

Precept 2018/19

At a meeting of the Parish Council held on the 12^th December 2017 it was agreed to set the precept, for the proportion of Council Tax payable to the Parish Council, at a figure of £275,009 for 2018/19. As Hassocks Parish has a tax base of 3,364.9 band D equivalent properties, this means that the Parish precept of a Band D property will be £81.73 per year an increase of £25.35 per year or just under 49p per week.

The Precept for Hassocks Parish is a small proportion of your total Council Tax Bill and this increase adds around 1.5% to the total bill. In fact despite increasing costs the Parish Precept (at Band D) last year (2017/18) was only 69p higher than in 2013/14.

So why the need to make this increase – Well there are several reasons why Council had to grasp the nettle and put future finances on a firm footing:

• Over several years Council has used its reserves to reduce the increase in the precept which has resulted in a growing gap between income and expenditure – this is not sustainable indefinitely and reduces money available for local projects.
• Recent Government legislation in areas such as Provision of Employee Pensions and Neighbourhood Planning – the costs of which are outside the Parish’s control
• The need to modernise the way the Council works to bring it into line with the current demands of both legal and Health & Safety aspects of the services it provides and to reflect the size of the Parish and the nearly 8000 people we serve.
• Responding to Community feedback through the Neighbourhood Plan process the Council has set itself a challenging plan of delivering a series of improvements within the Parish over the coming years and in particular within Adastra Park.

Taking action now will ensure that the Parish Council is in a strong financial position
and able to operate much more effectively on behalf of our community into the future as well as continuing to provide and improve the range of activities, facilities and services to the community.

Please click here to view the agenda  for the Parish Council meeting held on 12 December 2017.  This agenda includes the background papers considered by Members to determine the precept for 2018/19.

The minutes for this meeting can be viewed here.