The main income of the Parish Councilcomes from the Precept, a small portion of local taxes, collected for us byCheshire West and Chester, and shown on your Council Tax bill.
Precept Increase
In 24/25, the total KPC precept amounted to £38,000, calculated as £25.84 for a bad D property.
for 25/26, balancing our budget led us to set the precept at £52,000
Some additional revenues come from developers's contributions (either S106 contributions or Community Infrastructure Levy – CIL). These can be considerable sums but they depend on housebuilding taking place. The S106 sums earmarked for Kelsall have now all been spent, and we have some CIL left (£18K as of Dec 24). This will be far short of the likely play equipment replacement costs.
To balance our budgets going forward while coping with playground upkeep – on top of regular maintenance costs such as grass and hedge cutting, and salaries – we want to constitute proper provisions against the deterioration of the equipment. For this purpose, we have asked Cheshire West & Chester to let us increase the precept from £38,000 last FY to £52,000 for FY 25/26 onwards. This has been granted.
This makes the charge on a band D property (yardstick for calculating % increase) £34.60 (33% increase on last year's charge of £25.84). The % increase is higher than our previous requests, but Kelsall's precept has been significantly lower than most other local Parish Councils.
Over the past 15 years, since buying the Green and creating the playground, the nature and amount of our spending has changed dramatically: KPC acquired a large public open space, and this has slowly been equipped with a large children's playground, gym and recreation equipment for young and older people. We've also added some hard paths, landscaping and lights. The precept was briefly increased in the years following the land purchase to pay back a loan, but reduced again afterwards.
Most of the capital expenditure was funded by developers' contribution (plus fundraising for the first tranche of the playground), but the maintenance must come from our operating budget. For many years this has been possible using reserves, and only small increases in the precept.
A lot of playground equipment is getting old, and we now need to increase our budget in order to maintain our assets and also provide the services required by a growing community.
Finance and Accounts
Our Financial year runs from April to March. Our published accounts can be found below for the past three financial years.
Community Infrastructure Levy
Click here for information on CIL receipts and payments to the Parish Council
