I am sure the tax bill always had a breakdown of spending included in the envelope but I can't find one in this bill. Why do we accept such increases without a big protest? We get so little for the amount we pay. Should we just sit back and take this?

So lets have some answers. Just how much is the staff bill for the Guildhall? Why exactly is te town hall so rarely used?

its for the big white elephant in the middle of the town , as ive said before why have a council with no power.
might as well be run by witney or Banbury.

ifwe are to have the town hall im with you ED should be run by a manager payment on result

or minimum wage with bonus on profit

town hall has always been to dear to hire used to be used for sales ie tools , clothes etc where are they now, they still go to witney , stow , moreton , banbury bourton on the water

I concur - an absolute disgrace. Quad bikes - what a joke? I like to hear that one explained! Redevelopment of the play park was another reason - fair enough as it is useless but if I recall correctly this was only redeveloped a few years back? So what else ... Town hall - nothing new there so why such a huge increase? What are these guys playing at?

You know if you are all feeling so passionately about it why not get a few people together form a movement and take over the town council at the next elections in 2015.

The town council is actually one of the easiest local bodies to take control of. With most of the old guard expected to quit next time this may be a golden opportunity to bring in fresh blood.

You are right on paper that the town council has few responsibilities but with WODC and OCC less and less willing to do the work of promoting the town the town council will end up stepping into that gap and the council tax will keep going up and up.

The best political movements are those that start from the ground up with strong local input and at this level real change can be brought about.

Not so simple as it sounds, at one time Chippy First had the biggest "party" all independant however it was not enough when the Labour and Tories joined forces to defeat us which happened often. On one occasion a vote was 50/50, the correct procedure was as there was no overall majority the status quo should have prevailed instead Mayor Burrows invoked her casting vote to get her way.

Additionally some of the other "independents" always voted the same way Labour or Conservative.

Although I did not always agree with Chippy First at least they kept the other buffoons on their toes ... how can the Town Council justify a 37.1% increase? Outrageous ....

I can't see how the quad bikes are a waste of money as they are a real benefit to residence of the town. Last winter they proved invaluable at keeping the town going. All snow clearing was undertaken by volunteers.
The quads are not purchased but leased, which is probably the most efficient way of doing this from an accountants point of view.
Hundreds of 000 of £ on the town hall does seem a bitter pill though.

I have no problems with having quad bikes BUT how do the amounts equate? Town Council Tax increasing by at least £25 per household - in some cases £45 .... one of the main reasons given for the increase was for snow clearing. Maybe this is not a cost effective solution or maybe funds are wasted?

From what I can see the snow clearing quad lease is in the hundreds, not thousands. For modern equipment to cover the whole town I consider that money well spent. I'd like to see more detail of what the rest is to be spent on.

When Chippy First was a major force on the Town Council £100,000 was spent on the recreation ground in New Street, £300,000 on the Town Hall, they worked with the County Council to get a centre for the Youth Club - Glyme Hall and generally worked to try and improve the facilities in the Town and this was all done with ALMOST NO INCREASE in the Town Council precept.

Since the Council was taken over by the Conservatives led by those 'dynamic leaders' Butterworth and Tysoe matters have gone steadily downhill. Some time ago I posted about the waste of money in the Town and was challenged to say how savings could be made - so here goes:-
1. The Guildhall is grossly overstaffed. Stowe Town Council (about the same size as Chippy) is run by a PART TIME Town Clerk and about four hours of secretarial assistance. The Town Clerk works three mornings a week for about four hours a morning. If Chippy had the same the saving would be of the order of £50,000. Now I know that one of the reasons for the present staffing is the work done for other local bodies most of which have bags of money ( the William Fowler Allotments Trust has over one hundred thousand sloshing around)so let them either employ someone or charge them a realistic rate; say £50 per hour for secretarial services and a similar rate for accounting and book keeping work. Lots of time is spent on Cemetry enquiries Charge a realistic rate, if someone is researching their aunt Nelly's past then charge them. Or better still hand the records to the Museum and let them make the charge - say £100 per enquiry: Two results in one less time needed in the Guildhall and much needed income for the Museum.
2.The Town Hall operation needs a radical rethink. It costs the Town Money, is underused and is just an edifice to the pumped up Councillors on the Town Council. About three years ago it was refurbished in the belief that this would bring more custom. It has not because it has not been marketed and is offered at (Oh it's a poor local organisation so we can't charge a commercial rate)rediculously low rates. Questions have to be asked; Why have Pilates moved to Salford, Where have the Tool Sales and Woolovers gone to. I am not necessarily with Ed on this though he makes a strong case for it being run by a Town Hall Manager (like Beaconsfield Hall)other options should be explored, we need a new libary so why not do a deal with OCC; they take the main hall as the library and in exchange take on the running costs of heating, lighting and general maintenance, building insurance and any local rates. The lower hall would still be available for other functions and the library would move to the centre of the town and the literary festival could centre on it.
3. We need money for the Town Hall roof. The local precept will not fund the amount needed ( over £300,000) so look for other resources to bridge the gap. Sell the manorial land (the garage at the bottom of London Road) It currently brings in aroiund £15,000 a year but sold as an investment site could be worth in the region of a couple of hundred thousand. But then the track record of this Council in selling assets is likely to cast doubts on their ability to achieve this. Greystones house went for less than a quarter of the amount it was valued at. There are other assets that could be sold; sell the freeholds to the Rugby Club, The Rifle Club, The Bowls Club and The Scouts or CHARGE COMMERCIAL rents. The work that Gerry Alcock did in freeing up the lease on Greystones was completely wasted by this useless gang of Councillors.
4. Stop giving money away! why give grants to the Theatre, they have lots of money or to the CAB, a useless organisation but the pet of Cllr Jarratt, or to the Lido. And so it goes on; we have always done it so will go on doing it confident in the knowledge that the outcome will always be the same.
5. Raise money from othe sorces. In the time of Chippy First the Rec in New Street and the Town Hall refurbishments were funded by outside grants. Chippy First Councillors spent hours of their own time working to get the grants and to minimise the VAT that would be payable on the work. Who on the present Council will do the same. Gerry is dead and so is Misker and the other Chippy First Councillors have given up so who will pick up the gauntlet?

Above are some answers. It just needs some committment from a few determinded individuals who are not afraid to change things, to make it happen. If only!

The William Fowler Allotment Trust pays a huge amount of money to the Guild Hall every year for admin/secretarial costs. The figure is around £1800 per year I believe.

Unless I've missed something, there was no leaflet with the bill which explained or justified the town council's 37.1% increase. Perhaps one of the councillors could provide the details? As to the town hall, no doubt it could be more efficiently run & marketed, but presumably no-one would want to see it sold, or even worse, demolished!

How very timely, after WODC announced their zero rate increase now they wish to double the cost of using the Town Hall toilets from 10p to 20p AND cut down the amount of hours they are open. They must be havin a laugh! They are closed mutch of the time, how about getting them working first!

So much for encouraging visitors to the town.

With respect, that is not a huge amount.

I had to go into the Guildhall this morning not the town clerks bit but the main office. There are now 2 people working in there , amazing the need for 2 instead of the usual one. Both had WODC badges on

I'm not an allotment holder, but £1800 a year is over £34 per week. How much, in your opinion, would be a fair amount for the Wm Fowler Allotments to pay?

The cost of employing admin is somewhere in the region of £15 per hour £1800 divided by £15 is 120 hrs per year or 10 hrs per month/2.5 hrs a week, I don't think £1800 is enough.

Another frustration for me is the town owned petrol station. I think they are only charging around £15k per year in rent. A proper commercial rent for a petrol station and shop should be around £32500 per year!!

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/Bourton-On-The-Hill.html

The same as the bowls club and rugby club all being charged peppercorn rents when they clearly are profitable businesses.

In a recession Council tax rises maybe inevitable but only if the town have also explored EVERY commercial way to increase revenue and reduce expenditure first.

One should be careful of requiring the council to charge commercial rates for everything it does because then a lot of small and not so small groups would cease to exist. The principle of government is not to turn a profit but to provide services that are needed or deemed useful to local residents.

There is nothing in law that says the town has to own the Town Hall which is the main part of the increase this year. Therefore if the mainstream of public opinion is that costs must be cut then perhaps the Town Hall should be sold and a new owner can redevelop it into a restaurant, office or shop.

The complaint that the town hall is not busy enough is probably true. I always said that building Glyme Hall was a mistake. There just is not a enough business in town for 2 venues like that and the Town Hall has lost out to several regular 'gigs' moving up the road.

While the petrol station rent does seem low, people need to remember that commercial leases are signed for long periods, 10, 15 even 25 years are the standard and rent reviews only take place every 5 years. It maybe that the council are waiting for a review to take place before the rent can increase. However, if the tenant is not on a lease and merely holding over then this should be addressed urgently.

The bourton on the hill garage is not a good exanple as that site is now closed and moving towards dereliction as no one can afford to operate profitably at that rent level.

Given the relatively small amount of administration involved in running the William Fowler allotment site I feel that the fee paid is more than adequate.
In fact the amount raised from he rents does not cover the running cost.
As for the increase in the council tax due to the Town Council I don't understand the fuss.It is a very small amount.

A small amount of increase - over 30%. Come on you must be joking or you are one of the rich and famous in Chippy and money is no object.

I too have had to make savage cuts to my standard of living, I now only drink blended whisky and only smoke small cigars rather than the Cuban havannahs that I had grown accustomed to.
I still feel that 30 per cent of very little equates to very little.

That's not really the point, with ALL the councillors (16) trustees of the WF Allotments committee it shouldn't be necessary for the Guildhall to do their paperwork. The WFC is NOT a council responsability just that committee members must be town councillors.

Again the point, from my original story is, the council provides NO services to speak off like bin emptying what so ever except employ guildhall to administer paperwork much of it not council work.

I am assured that the allotments takes up a very considerable proportion of the Finance Officer's (Janet) time. Rents are late being paid, queries and applications for allotments. Likewise the Wellfare charities. The Chairperson seems to think the Guildhall staff are her staff. The Mayor (actually all the mayor is is chairman of the council)uses the staff to arrange his mayoral social calendar. He gets an allowance so that he can go to other mayoral functions at other parishes in the county. So let's get rid of that allowance, no more visits and less work for the Guildhall.

So the nub of your argument is lets get rid of the Guild Hall staff and Town Council in order to save the amount we pay in Council Tax. In my case £99.00 per year. I suppose we could then pass over the responsibilities of the Town Council to W.O.D.C. to run and administer. I am sure they would be willing to do this and all for free.
The downside of course would be that we, Chipping Norton, would be treated with even more contempt by the Witney/Carterton groups than we already are.
The other result of this would, of course, be three people losing their jobs.
All for a saving of less than £2.00 a week per council tax paying dwelling.

Agreed. The headline grabbing +37.1% increase is probably less than £2.00 per week averaged out over all Council Tax payers in Chippy. Obviously it would be great to have no increse at all, but the town precept(I Think that's the right word) is still only a small amount of the total Council Tax bill.

Why pay £99.00 anyway? None of it goes to services WODC supplies those, half the "services" they supply like WTA are not the responsibility of the council and they are more than financially well off to pay the going rate if they can afford to fence off part of the allotments they can afford more. Once the services not the responsability of the council have gone the work could be done with less staff. If your argument is about three people loosing their jobs then so? If the work is no longer needed then job's have to go, councils up and down the country are having to cut back and losing staff why not this one?

Anyway it is not about getting rid of all the guildhall staff, it is about cutting back on costs and in these circumstances getting rid of work that is not the responsability of the council and dragging this administration into this century.

37.1% mikegee? Why not 50.1% or even better101.1% if money doesn't bother you, and what about next year, another 30%? Because sure as eggs are eggs it will go up but so what it will be £2.50 next year, and for what? New toilets? Better road's or more money dissapearing into the guildhall.

I

Ed, I hope your reply was rongue in cheek. Like everyone, I would like to see a situation where there were no increases in any taxes, and in fact a reduction to some of the so-called 'green' taxes, which increase the price of everything, but, as we have to live in the real world, we all know these things won't happen. My point re; the local Council tax was, as I said, that it's a small proportion of the overall CT bill, and even with the increase is still less than £2 per week. As a pensiner I certainly don't want to face ever increasing bills on limited income!

Just been in Town Hall and in the photos of the coucillors ect is a photo of a deputy Town Clerk. Is this a paid position.
if so that makes 4 staff at Guildhall

mikegee, plese tell me what we get for our money? What we have is actually a parish council that has no power so why does it need c£200k to exist? Do you think Enstone parish council opperates in the same overstaffed manner, Why did it need to spend £30,000 on a survey when they are powerless to act on it's results.

Good news for the aggrieved, there will be a town council election on the 22nd May (same day as district and euro elections), after the resignation of David Lydiat.

Nominations have to be in by 24th April. Come one, come all. Its your chance to make your voice heard.

Has anyone worked out the savings if the Town Council was disbanded and all admin was taken over by WODC since the Guildhall is only open from 9.00am to 1pm????

It would appear the Town Council is only like a Parish Council with no power whatsoever.

It is a Parish Council as Chippy lost its borough status in the early 70's

That is exactly what I more or less said "it is only like a Parish Council with no power whatsoever" so get rid of the Town Council, hive off the Guildhall and save money. I expect of you had a referendum on the issue the majority of the town folk would agree with me.