You will have received your Council Tax bill for 2020/21 in the post in recent days and this has stemmed some questions regarding this year’s bills. The decisions surrounding the work programme, budget and precept for 2020/21 were made at a meeting on 22nd January, you can read the minutes to that meeting here.
Leader of the Council, Cllr Rich Ackroyd, explains: “Our work programme focuses on bringing people together, enabling and supporting strong resilient communities. Our budget reflects this. By acquiring more land in our town, we can plant more trees, create more green spaces and continue to maintain play areas for all ages to enjoy. By investing in buildings we can create job opportunities and support the growth of local businesses – all this involves considerable staff time. Town Cllrs have decided it’s worth it to it make the town a better place for all to live in. Our budget and corresponding work programme reflects our ambition for strong, resilient communities, improved facilities and infrastructure in our town inclusive of all residents and a professional staff to support them. In these unprecedented times, Frome Town Council will also be supporting communities, businesses and individuals across the town”.
Cllr Ackroyd continues: “More specifically, alongside our incremental increases across budgets, an additional £65k is going straight into supporting and enabling our community groups to continue developing their excellent work. This brings our total communities expenditure to £225k in 2020/21. Similarly, an additional £50k is going to our Parks and Open spaces. Key open spaces projects include improving Chateau Gontier Walk and delivering Frome’s Tree Project which will benefiting the entire community. We will also be employing a new Trees project officer, an additional Town Ranger and recruiting an apprentice to work in the Town Hall.
This budget represents a true picture of both our expenditure and our ambition”.
For further details please see the work programme and the budget
Updated 19/03/2020
