At our last Council meeting on 15 January we set our budget for the next financial year. This was sent to Wrexham County Borough as a request for the budgeted amount to be incorporated into the Council Tax notices which will be sent out in the next few weeks.
We have now had confirmation that the proposed budget has been accepted, which is £50,486. This compares to £45,474 for the year to 31 March 2025, and will represent a charge of approximately £70 for a Band D Council Tax household. The exact sum will be derived by Wrexham County Borough, who hold the details of exactly how many Minera Ward properties fall into each of the 9 Council Tax bands, but as these numbers do not fluctuate greatly from one year to the next, £70 will be a reasonable estimate.
For other Council Tax bands, the sums will be referenced to Band D as follows:
Band A 6/9 of Band D (approximately £47)
Band B 7/9 of Band D (approximately £54)
Band C 8/9 of Band D (approximately £62)
Band E 11/9 of Band D (approximately £86)
Band F 13/9 of Band D (approximately £99)
Band G 15/9 of Band D (approximately £114)
Band H 18/9 of Band D (approximately £140)
Band I 21/9 of Band D (approximately £159)
We have sought to keep down the increase in precept to as little as possible without discontinuing any of the services we provide. Several of our larger costs are sourced from Wrexham County Borough and are simply recharges of their own costs (School Crossing Patrol £6,750, Youth Activity Programme £7,516 and Play Area Maintenance and Inspection £1,570), and these have also been affected by National Insurance increases this year.
We have pegged our electricity costs in line with the current year until 31 December 2025 through a single year deal, and hope we might improve this further through collaborative procurement with other Community Councils. This budgeted item is £4,700 next year.
The Clerk’s salary has been set at £8,000, which includes a recognition of National Insurance costs of approximately £500 on a salary which previously fell entirely below the cost threshold for this tax.
We will be setting aside £4,500 towards replacement streetlights in around 5 years’ time, this provision increasing by £1,500 per annum until we have accumulated a total of £31,500 for the project. Our interest free loan for the previous set of lights will continue to be paid back at the rate of £2,970 per annum until 2028.
The Community Agent service, delivered by Susanne Allcroft, is paid for by a grant which is ultimately funded by Welsh Government, so is not part of our Council Tax funding. We don’t expect this grant to be withdrawn, but we also don’t expect it to be increased this year. The National Insurance increase on the cost of providing this service will rise to nearly £1,000 next year, however, so we may need to use some money from reserves to keep the service intact.
We will also look to use our reserves where a suitable project is identified so that we can enhance our community assets without resorting to further Council Tax increases. In the last year we have renovated the bus shelter in Minera, part-funded the Youth Activities Programme, installed an outdoor table tennis table and renovated the zipwire using reserve money. In the last 7 years other reserve (rather than Council Tax) funding has exceeded £60,000 and included a playground rebuild, other principal items of play equipment, renovation of the New Brighton phone box and surrounding area and the installation of 4 public access defibrillators.
I hope these details are useful, and I’ll be pleased to answer any further questions from residents about our budget and how we seek to get best financial value for the community.
David Hinchliffe, Clerk, Minera CC
clerk@minera-cc.gov.wales
07506 205907