December 2023 by J. W.
Why have a Parish Council? To pay an additional amount of Council Tax of course! Parish Councils have very few duties an responsibilities a part from providing allotments and places for communities to gather like county halls or making the Parish a pleasant place to live but have no limit on the amount of Council Tax that they can demand from residents and no accountability.Let?s have a look at BHPC finances. Precept for the years 2022/23 was £350,000, £188,000 was spent on staff costs, about 15,000 on renting office space for the Parish Clerk and admin at Warwick House. This despite the fact that the Parish Council have the Woollard Centre and Roding Valley Hall with plenty of office space. Another £6,000 was spent on IT support and, I hope that the residents enjoyed the Christmas tree, a whopping £1.392, last year, probably more this year and bought from a fellow Councillor.The Parish Council (us) pay for a full time Clerk at 38 hours per week, I believe her salary to be about £45,000 or more. Some PC may choose a qualified accountant as a Parish Clerk to save paying an additional £40,000 for the Financial Officer but not Buckhurst Hill Parish Council.The residents may be struggling with the cost of living, Buckhurst Hill is looking increasing squalid and dirty but we still have to pay for these extravagant expenditures and see very little in return. In addition the Parish Council is purposefully unclear about what they do so that the residents may think that they actually do something. Your local Councillor will, in many cases, work against you, not for you and may not even bother to answer your queries, I know that mine does exactly that.