How residents in a Cornish village have been given a council tax holiday
Good news for locals in Cubert!
The chairman of a Cornish parish council has explained how it has been able to give residents a council tax holiday.
Cubert Parish Council was revealed to have axed the entire charge for residents for 2021/22 – the only council in Cornwall to have taken the step.
In the minutes of the meeting when the council set its budget for the coming year it was explained that the precept was set to zero “to assist parishioners at this difficult time”.
Town and parish councils are able to add a charge to council tax bills to pay for the services that they provide for the local community.
With budgets being set by councils it has been revealed that the average increase in charges for town and parish councils in Cornwall is 3.39% – for a band D property the total average charge for town and parish councils is £138.13.
Last year residents in Cubert parish in a Band D property were charged £51.26 but when their bills drop in April they will see a charge of £0 for the parish council.
Alan Percy, chairman of Cubert Parish Council, told BBC Radio Cornwall: “It was approximately £50 per household for a D band property and next year we have decided we can afford to give everybody a precept holiday so it will be nothing next year.”
Asked how the council would cover its costs Cllr Percy said: “The bottom dollar is we believe we have got the money to cover it.
“Covid has brought us some strange windfalls if you like. We have not been able to carry out some of the duties that we wanted to carry out which has brought us some money.
“And we have made some gains, if you like, because some people have become a bit concerned and they have bought more than the usual amount of cemetery plots for instance.
“We were hoping to put in a cycle track and upgrade our toilets in the coming year but the truth is with Covid it is difficult to get builder in to do the work or give a quote.
“We have got some treasure chest, some reserves and some savings because of Covid and savings anyway because of the financial work so we can cover it.”
Explaining how the parish council decided to set the precept to zero he added: “The parish precept is decided in November and like most parish councils we are not down to deciding most things by emails outside a Zoom meeting, there was an amount of email traffic and telephone calls in November between councillors to see if we had a goer if you like, if it was reasonable thing to do.
“In the November meeting it was brought as a proposition and agreed unanimously.”
Cllr Percy said that the decision had been welcomed: “We don’t blow our own trumpets but we know on Facebook it has been mentioned and it was picked up by the newsletter.
“We have had some comments, all favourable but you would expect that to be truthful.”