CALSTOCK parish councillors have voted in favour of a tax increase to bring a new skatepark to the Tamar Valley.

They have backed a 19% increase in the parish council precept, slightly above last year’s 17% increase on the parish part of the council tax.

This will fund a Capital Works Programme to bring the much-needed new skateboard facilities to St Ann’s Chapel as well as cover an increase in costs hitting the council due to inflation.

The increase on an average Band D property comes to an extra 35p a week.

At the full council meeting on November 8, councillors were asked whether they voted in favour of the precept requirement of £263,000 for 2023/2024, which is £23,000 more than the current year precept of £240,000.

The precept is a tax the parish council charges as part of the council tax to meet their budget requirements. Councillor Mark Warwick who presented the precept, reported that the finance and general purposes committee had worked hard to keep the rise as low as possible, saying: ‘We’ve been cautious but realistic.’

Another councillor, Richard Newton Chance said: ‘The only source of funding the council has is the precept. It has increased due to increased expenditure due to inflation. The parish council has also been passed a lot of responsibility from Cornwall Council such as car parks etc and that has to be paid for.’

Last year the council increased the precept by 17% to carry out repairs and improvements on local recreational amenities – this year the council has been required to increase its precept again to cover rising costs and put money into the Capital Works Programme to enable the council to fund bigger projects for the parish.

For 2023/24 the the parish council portion of the council tax for a Band D property will increase from £93.66 to £112, averaging to around an extra 35p a week, a little higher than last year’s increase of 29p.

The Capital Works Programme is a way of staggering the costs of development projects such as improvements, developments or assets that require considerable maintenance costs that could take a long time to fund. It allows for prioritising, planning and completing these development projects on a five-year rolling programme. The councillors voted in favour of setting up the Capital Works Programme in March this year when it was put forward by Cllr Newton Chance.

One idea which has already been put forward by the council’s recreation committee as part of the programme is the proposal to reinstall a skatepark at St Ann’s playing field, an idea that is underpinned by research conducted by ex-councillor Sophie Westwood. The skatepark that was at St Ann’s Chapel fell into disrepair some years ago. The new programme would be a way of funding a new skatepark at the site quickly.

‘There’s stuff we can do in the parish that would be quicker if we can raise at least some of the finances through the precept’, said Mark.

Richard echoed Mark’s views, saying: ‘The amount of money we’re talking about putting into the Capital Works Programme is a small amount of money across a lot of council tax payers and it can do real good for parishioners by providing stuff at absolutely minimal cost. It’s up to the committees to come up with ideas and the first one that’s got approval is the skatepark but we’re keen to do something down at Calstock as well eventually, but we have got to deliver on the first one first.’

Cllr Alastair Tinto supported increasing the precept to fund the programme and said: ‘I think this is a really important development. Without a Capital Works Programme we’re not going to be able to do anything. It’s really important that we’ve made the decision to make a start on the Capital Works Programme.’ All parish council members present at the full council meeting were in favour of the two proposals.