Melksham Town Council's income in the year to 31st March 2025 is expected to be around £1.21 million pounds of which the lion's share (£1.05 million) is from the precept on Melksham Town residents. The difference of £116,000 - our other income - comes from various sources, with the lion's share of around £75,000 of that from the Assembly Hall.

The majority of our expenditure is on staff (salaries, national insurance, office accommodation, tools of trade, arrival and departure costs, training, etc) which I estimate based on public current figures will come in at around £780,000 this same year. That's around two thirds of our annual budget. And, I understand, is not out of the norm for lowest tier councils.

What should we - in my opinion only - be charging for next year? Let's look at what we and our rsidents want and need, and this article is based on public information. Read through to discover what this has to do with a third of a chocolate bar ...

Staffing - strategy and budget

I advocate rewarding our staff well for doing their jobs well - not only in terms of financial reward, but also making each of their roles enjoyable. That includes providing them with the tools to do their jobs well, and directions from the council itself that are reasonable (a fine word is "Reasonable"). Not everyone who's taken on by an organisation stays in the long term, but since I became a Town Councillor in 2021, it's felt like waves of enthusiasm as staff arrive, building up as they learn in and then break on the shore of pressure. Jean Harris, who finished with Melksham Town Council in 2018, was hailed as an icon even before she passed, and since her I can give you five more names for Town Clerk. We currently have a locum (a locum "is a person who temporarily fulfils the duties of another") and so I would expect a further change in the next year - do I make that seven town clerks in seven years? And in my view this is a cycle that must be broken.

It's not just the "head poncho" role that turns over too fast either ... another hard worker who had a love of Melksham left last week, and I was reconning we have a list of over 2 dozen staff and councillors leaving since I was elected - at least double what it should be.

My priority in budget setting would be to have enough resources, and policies to retain good people. The breaking of waves I have described above is very expensive in cost, very expensive if available practical staff time as people learn in and wind down, and very expensive in things not getting done. It's also very expensive in the personal lives of the people we break.

Sinking funds and reserves - strategy and budget

We have a backlog. Of repair works on the Town Hall, Assembly Hall, and the MIN office. Of replacing play equipment. The Splashpad needs resurfacing every 4 years. The IT equipment replaced everyb5 years. The Town Council vehicles every so often. One-off projects such as the East of Melksham Village Hall, the Sensory Garden, the BMX track, and the Blue Pool future. And we also need to be able to fund unexpected emergencies - such as immediate needs that came up at the start of Covid, or the extra £120,000 we required in the staffing budget this Autumn; these are our General Reserve.

Boring stuff, I know, but, we need to put away or plan for these projects and replacements years ahead. And we also need to have enough in hand to be able to pay for the expected and unexpected. If you look back at Finance Committee agendas, which include account details, you'll find that our general reserve has dropped significantly. We can't go on doing that year after year.

So - after staffing - we should be putting back sinking funds and replenishing our general reserves. Anything we have not spent this year will go back into general reserves but really - if our main budget is right - there should not be much of that, with detailed underspends and overspends balancing.

Other Income

I mentioned £116,000 this year. For next year, we should be able to do better. The earmarked reserve for the East of Melksham Hall (it's money that's come from CIL and section 106) is sitting in our bank and should be earning a lot better interest than it has been. Now that it's well established the rental for the cafe in the park, which had a low start point, increases. And now that we're long past covid, we should revert to Assembly Hall bookings for major shows on a more standard basis where we trust our manager, take a little more risk on each show, and make more substantially more income. MWPC already provide income to help with the town toilet, but perhaps they shouls also help financially with other town facilities which their residents make heavy use of. I am leaving number off the individual items here, but the £116,000 should rise to just shy of £200,000 next year for "other income".

Other Expenditure

This is where the other (this year) about £400,000 comes in. A big chunk goes for grants to outside bodies - let's say £50,000. There's £40,000 on insurance. Perhaps £30,000 goes on election expenses. £20,000 on two public loos (more next year?) . £30,000 on grass cutting in the park. £20,000 on bar supplies for the Assembly Hall. Over £20,000 on a maintenance depot in Bowerhill. Perhaps £15,000 on water, chemicals and electricity for the Splashpad. £20,000 on software licenses, and that's over a half of the extra money gone already. We spend around £50,000 a year on events around the town - Christmas lights, Last night of the Proms and Remembrance this autumn, for example. It's really not leaving us with very much, is it?

What else could / should we be doing?

A number of these items - in my view - are investments that will make us more efficient in the future. I've already mentioned the cost of hiring waves of staff, and we could make their jobs so much easier. And there are things we could do to reduce other costs too.

* Sort out the Web Site and systems behind for staff efficiency including Virtual Hub. It's a struggle to find out what's going on at times - for staff as well as councillors and the public and what a waste chasing up the same things time and again. "Openness costs" one of my fellow councillors told me. In some ways it does, but if we get twice the questions and can answer them each with a quick link - or have people able to look for themselves - it's a saving and a transparency in the medium and long term. Another councillor was going on about how open we must be recently - in a confidential session so I can't tell you more.

* Sort out what is a grant, what is grantable, and what is a contract. At present, IMHO it's a mess. Massive subject - we should be helping with provision that perhaps needs topping up through repetitive grants (and remember that £1.00 in grant is worth £4.00 in delivery through volunteers - old figure). Some of those grants should perhaps be contracts to enable the council to have a better insight into how the money goes. And one-off grants should be much less admin work to apply for and evaluate - we are very unclear as to our criteria and often ignore our own rules - "no discrimination on age" we say so why are we funding older persons or youth projects - it's silly!

* Deal with the awful Committee Room and other meeting spaces. Dark walls, no projector, no screen to plug into. And with the clerk insisting that groups of volunteers meet there it's enough to put people off volunteering.

* A volunteer's hub. This likely rolls in with other items but we have a need to properly support volunteers who work - for free - for the Town Council. We are really pretty poor at this, especially of late.

* Complete the purchase of the Blue Pool and initial development works. I would really hope we have the purchase completed this year. We then have some insurance and tick-over costs for the empty building and also the work on planning which options we are taking. The business plan suggested over a year ago by the Friends of Melksham Assembly Hall looked at the options of making use of the existing buildings, knock down and build new, or sell off the whole site for development (which I add to the list for completeness). For 2025/26 budget, the costs of all three options are likely to be similar. Beyond that, a new build by MTC would mean a loan from the Public Works Loan Board and a substantial increase in precept to cover the capital costs until the 2040s, and I don't think we would gain all that much from knocking down buildings that have many years life in them if properly maintained, a big flat roof on which solar panels will generate all of our power, and space for our maintenance shed, a museum, and a smaller theatre / cinema to supplement our current Assembly Hall which is getting very hard to book because it's so popular, and a car park with perhaps 40 spaces replacing what we used to have for free in the Market Place.

* Progress East of Melksham Community Hall. A building committent, and experience of other local halls such as Berryfield suggests it will be well used if properly managed. Big "thank you" to Melksham Without Parish Council for their help in having this go forward. Now that we at MTC have the staff to progress this, our budget needs to include that spend though it will come from extra monies and not the precept on town residents nor a loan taken out.

* Move the maintenance base from Bowerhill onsite. It's kinda absurd that we pay every year for a base that's out of the council's area, and pay our staff time and fossil fuel costs for then driving out there and back. It's come about for various reasons, but over the next year we should be moving them back (old Blue Pool?) so it's a one off payment that saves time and money every year into the future.

* Restore the green budget, trees and commitments made by MTC. In the current year, £10000 was remove from the budget from the previous year for biodiversity, and the commitment made by this council to hold an event to encourage local climate awareness and global warming action was zeroed out. And we really should be taking the lead by moving to electric vehicles (especially if we can charge them from the Blue Pool roof!). Much could be done by working better with Volunteers who are keen and available in the whole Melksham area such as Melksham Green Spaces and the Melksham Environment Group.

* Sell the building that's let to commercial tenants on the Market Place. I can't see a council use ourselves for this which has long term tenants, and looking after and maintaining it is a distraction on staff and, frankly, the income doesn't cover what we do to the place. As it's let to the local free newspaper who have to make editorial decisions on what of ours they cover, I could also question how healthy the relationship is.

* Real Time Bus information at 6 bus stops where most people are picked up. There should already by a couple coming in this year, but as I write that seems lost as it's in the hands of people who only joined after a supposed installation date of the first two. Locations - Market Place, King's Arms, The Bear, Opposite The Bear, Buds, and the railway ststion.

* Seeding support for electric bus. Wiltshire Council has just been granted £3 million in capital and £2 million in revenue support for next year's bus improvements and launches a consultation on their strategy this time next week. As the 4th largest town in Wiltshire, though the LTP makes special cases of the top 3, we are well positioned to make a business case and argue for a 2 vehicle system, modernise from what we had pre-covid into a network. Some seeding support from MTC in terms of specialist advice will be necessary to get this right for the town.

* Economic Development engagement. See previous blog (scroll down to read). Much of this - and some other activities - should be done in partnership with Melksham Without Parish Council who virtually surround us and have a much longer knowledge base on their team of these longer term issues.

Other projects already costed / earmarked in this current year

These are significant ongoing projects which should be more or less complete in the next few monthes,
* EcoLoos convert to standard
* Sensory Garden
* BMX Track
* Town Centre Projects
* Awdry Avenue Play Area
Monies for the Town Centre projects and the Awdry Avenue Play are coming from grants applied for rather than from the local taxpayer. If not complete this year, monies typically go into general or earmarked reserves and are available to spend in the following year; this sort of thing really depends on conditions on the grant.

So what would I suggest?

It is very presumptive of this current council, some of whom including myself are not seeking re-election next year and won't be there to implement plans, to details what the next council you elect should do. However, it is our right and duty to provide a solid base for them to fulfil their role, and provide enough for them to have some flexibility on doing what they are elected to do. So I listen carefully, and I have the luxury of being able to make some suggestions which will be unpopular in the short term but will set up the next council to be able to do really well for the town if so minded without another series of crashing waves.

On that basis, I would propose a precept of £228.00 on a band D home. That's a pound a week per household increase - the cost of a third of a bar or chocolate. It's not per person, remember - it's per household. We are told that "the pips are squeezing" for many and indeed so; in the case of this particular increase, there are rebates and systems in place such that they will only pay a part or not even all of it - "the poorest don't pay" someone said. That will not stop screams at a 29% rise (gotta love stats); inflation is strange beast and different on different products - I was seeing on TV that it's 39% over 2 years on fresh fruit and veg, and that is on far bigger spends.

A precept increase of around that amount would get my vote when it comes to a public council meeting - anticipated next month. Much lower and I think we would be setting up problems for our successors. Very much higher would be a problem for me - but we should make it enough for our current team of staff to both make the councils's systems work for Melksham residents efficiently, happily and long term stable, and help take our town forward for the next decade.