The impending Local Government Reorganisation is creating serious debate within Honiton Town Council. As Chair of the Finance Committee, I’m seeing some worrying budget drafts.
I’ll try to keep this brief, as getting into all the detail of LGR could take all day.
Back in July, the town council approved a strategy document, written after LGR was announced, which sets out very ambitious plans to take over services and assets currently managed by EDDC. Full disclosure – I voted against it.
At our Finance Committee meeting on 17th November, some of us were very disturbed by figures in the first full draft budget for 2026/27, which was showing an increase of 45%, increasing the precept by more than £300,000 to over £1million!
We had a debate about whether this increase could be justified. I thought not and some others agreed. The mayor was arguing that it was necessary because of LGR.
Honiton’s mayor and town clerk have attended various meetings with EDDC officers, and possibly EDDC councillors as well, to discuss LGR and its impact on town councils. But it’s all very vague and there are no notes or minutes of any of the meetings. I’ve heard a couple of very short verbal briefings giving no real information.
Personally, one reason that I’m worried about the large LGR budget is that we have no assurance that EDDC will even be in a position to start transferring anything to town councils. So Honiton Town Council could be raising money that simply can’t be spent for its stated purpose.
EDDC are going to be busy enough preparing to transfer all their services and assets to the new unitary council (whatever it may look like). Will they really have time to deal with multiple transfers to town councils?
Anyway, the Finance committee has to make a recommendation to set the Council Tax precept for 2026/27 at its December meeting, which will be put to the full council in January.
Ideally the Finance committee should try to reach a consensus, possibly with a bit of give and take. Based on our debate at this meeting, I suspect we are unlikely to achieve that.
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