Barnacre Parish Council Precept for 2024/2025

16th of February, 2024

What is the Parish Council Precept and how is it calculated?

The Parish Council precept is essentially a small, local tax paid by residents within a parish to directly fund the Parish Council and its activities. The precept enables the council to carry out its work, pay employees and maintain and improve your local area. The precept is debated at a meeting of the Council.

The Parish Council must agree a budget before it can set its precept, the budget process results in the council setting the precept for the following year. The budget is used to determine the amount the council need to fulfil expenses, wages, planned projects for the upcoming year and donations to local causes. The precept is then divided by the number of households in the parish. This determines the individual contribution (the precept) each household needs to pay per annum (£15.40 per household).

The calculated precept amount is added to each household’s council tax bill based on their property band (larger houses contribute slightly more).

Barnacre-With-Bonds Parish Council Precept

Barnacre-With-Bonds Parish Council have set the precept for the financial year 2024/25 at £17,000, this was unanimously agreed at the meeting on 08th January 2024. The precept is paid as part of the residents Council Tax and distributed accordingly by Wyre Council. This means that a Band D property will pay £15.40 to Barnacre Parish Council for the financial year 2024/2025. This equates to an increase of £8.28 for the year or 15.9p per week per Band D household compared to the last financial year 2023/2024. See the table below.

	2023/24	2024/25
Precept	£8000	£17000
Taxbase	1,124.37	1104.03
Band D equivalent	£7.12	£15.40
Change on previous year	£0.27	£8.28
% change on previous year	3.94%	116.3%

Projects 2024/2025

Barnacre-With-Bonds Parish Council has budgeted for the planned project to upgrade the Lancaster Canal Towpath between Garstang and Bilsborrow. This will allow substantial upgrades to the path allowing accessibility to all residents 365 days a year. This council has budgeted £8000 to contribute to this project. The overall cost of the project is estimated to be £300,000. There are many organisations and Parishes involved in the funding of this project. It is an exciting project which the Parish Council fully supports for the benefit of residents.

Barnacre-with-Bonds has included in the budget a £500 donation to the Garstang Christmas Lights Appeal. This is a very small donation in relation to the overall costs paid. The lights, benefit the community as a whole and are enjoyed by everyone.

The National Association of Local Council (NALC) advise that Parish Councils should maintain general reserves which are equal to between 3 and 12 months net revenue expenditure. This is to provide capacity for the Parish Council to be able to function should any kind of emergency arise.

Prepared by Helen Adair Clerk & RFO Barnacre-With-Bonds Parish Council.