9^th April 2020

The Parish Council realise it is so hard for many residents but so pleased and thankful to everyone in Timsbury for showing the determination, compassion and organising skills to support each other in these challenging, unique, and for many frightening, times.

It is great to hear the ‘clapping’ for key workers across the Parish on Thursdays at 8pm. That includes our thanks to the teaching and other staff at St Mary’s School, looking after our key workers children, and the local staff of our Pharmacy and our Doctors. We are so lucky to have their hard work and commitment to support our local community.

Timsbury churches were amazingly quick in setting up a network of volunteers to get shopping for isolating residents, with a dedicated team for medication delivery, who have been specially trained by the Pharmacy.

The Teddy Bear and Rainbow spotting trails are a lovely diversion on our daily exercise time. Thanks to everyone who has taken and intend to take part.  As these walks are becoming part of life the ‘Timsbury Walks’ books have had a new rush of interest bringing variety to their lives – you can buy them in Health & More in the High Street.

An update of what is happening and available locally is shown on the Coronavirus village webpage here: timsbury.org.uk/coronavirus.

We are worried that some vulnerable residents may miss out on the various efforts of the Government, B&NES Council Compassionate Community scheme and local support. We will do what we can, with the help of others to fill any gaps as we find them. Please make us aware of any situation that you think we need to know about and we will help if we can.

The Parish Council will consider providing financial or support to groups, businesses or individuals to do things that support others in the parish during, and as a result of, the coronavirus outbreak, if it falls within its reserves, the law allows it, and where other resources are not available e.g. from the various Government schemes.

We are all having to cope and adapt, and we will need ideas for recovery when we come out of the lockdown. We all need to think about making a special effort to support our local businesses and groups when they open again to keep them going, especially those who have tried to carry on supporting us – the local butchers, bakers and veg growers etc. who have carried on providing and also set up home deliveries.

Meanwhile, the Parish Council will make urgent or necessary decisions remotely, as we are affected by isolation rules the same as everyone else. We are continuing to pay our staff and the contractors who regularly provide our services to support them and to ensure continuity of services in the long term. The legally required Annual Parish Meeting in April, the Parish Council’s own annual meeting in May and our financial audit processes are postponed by Government.

If you have any ideas or concerns please contact the Parish Council via the Clerk here.

From the Chairman on behalf of the whole Parish Council.

The Timsbury Parish Council Precept for the village that will be included in Council Tax bills for the year from April 2020/21 will amount to £69,000. This total will be divided between the households in the village (approximately 1,200) according to Council Tax band and the number of adults in residence.

The charge for a Band D house is expected to be about £74 for the year, an increase of just over £1 per month compared with 2019/20.

In the current year to the end of March 2020 Timsbury Parish Council is expected to spend a total of £78,000. In the year to end of March 2021 the forecast spend is £88,800.

The increase in spending is necessary to replace services previously provided by B&NES Council. In the past few years B&NES Council has lost Government funding, increased its spend on social care and faced restrictions on Council Tax increases.

As a result, the B&NES has substantially reduced the amount it spends on other things and over the next three years it plans to cut another £15 million from its budget. As services disappear parish councils are left to provide such replacement services as they see fit.

For the coming year Timsbury Parish Council has decided to fund the Hub library to replace the discontinued mobile library service; to maintain provision of a youth service that would otherwise have vanished and retain the street sweeper, all previously paid for by B&NES Council.

The expected costs for these three elements in 2020/21 are hub library £12,800; youth service £13,300, sweeper £5,600. These are costs that will need to be met in future years and the increased Precept recognises this on-going commitment.

In addition, we also lost an annual grant from B&NES and the Parish Council is protecting its reserves in preparation for expected high spending in future years on street lighting and road safety improvements.

Full details of the Precept budget can be found on the village website www.timsbury.org.uk/parish council/finances