£384k Scarborough Town Council Budget Set for Approval

Wednesday, 13 November 2024 06:00

By Matthew Pells and Anttoni James Numminen, Local Democracy Reporter

The budget for the new council will be approved today but questions remain over what it will do and what it will cost.

Concerns about a lack of clarity over both those issues have been raised by local councillors as the new council's budget looks set to be approved today.

The Town Council will be created next spring and looks set to have a first year budget of £384,000.

Eastfield Councillor - Tony Randerson - says residents are asking him for answers

The budget for the new town council is expected to be confirmed today at a meeting of North Yorkshire Council.

It's expected the new council, which will be created in April, will have a first year budget of £384,000 adding £28.88 a year to a band D council tax bill.

Scarborough Councillor - Liz Colling - thinks the new council will add value to the town.

Ahead of the first elections next May, North Yorkshire Council is required to set the Council's budgets and precepts for the first year of operation.

At a public meeting last week, Scarborough’s charter trustees held further discussions about the extent and scale of the proposed precept.

The budget will include hiring a town clerk and administrative support as well as an interim clerk, equipment and setting up a website as well as funding civic costs, minimum running costs, risk mitigation costs and service development.

After staffing, which has been budgeted at £115,000 for the full-time town clerk and admin support, the second largest single expense will be contingency funds at £100,000.

North Yorkshire Council has said that in addition to their own contingency funds, it is willing to provide a £100,000 loan to the new councils to help mitigate financial risk in their first year of operation.

As such, charter trustees including Coun Rich Maw proposed “reducing the precept recommendations by £100,000” to reduce the charges for residents in Scarborough.

However, a majority of the trustees voted in favour of the officers’ recommendations for a £384,000 precept, which highlighted the many “unknown specific costs” that the town council could face and goes towards ensuring that it has “some reasonable headroom” to mitigate those costs.

According to a report, any unspent balance will be carried forward to 2026-27 to “provide funds to mitigate future risk and capacity for service investment”.

Next May, residents in the Castle, Falsgrave and Stepney, Northstead, Weaponness and Ramshill, and Woodlands wards will be asked to elect a total of 15 unpaid town councillors.

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