In a statement published in the last Eastington Community News, the parish council promised to ‘adjust down’ the precept next year. This is not a win for us. It fails to clarify if the parish will rectify their error of over £46,000.

Prior to the parish meeting in July, the council attended a private meeting to consider spending tens of thousands of our money without consulting us. This continued errant behaviour, which flies in the face of the recommendations of the National Association of Local Councils was again evidenced at July’s meeting; before the council voted on a matter regarding a larger sum of public money, the chair initiated a "public vote" - in an attempt to ‘gauge opinion’ when there was fewer than 1% of the Eastington population present. How can this be said to be representative, if our petiton, signed by over 140 could be swept aside and ignored?

The parish council statement denies all responsibility for the precept error, placing all blame on the locum clerk. This is a weak excuse and tantamount to scapegoating; had Eastington Parish Council carried out a precept calculation before submitting, as they did for the previous year, the error could have been corrected before it was ‘too late’. As stated in the January minutes, the precept rate was unanimously agreed by all and the locum clerk confirmed they ‘would circulate [the] final budget’ amongst council members. However, even with a correct precept, the budget is not being spent accordingly; the council budgeted for £152,275 last year but spent less than half of this. In other words, residents are paying for nonexistent services.

Despite these ongoing and worrying issues, there is no Parish Council meeting this month - and a total lack of information as to why.

Eastington parishioners deserve better. Whilst we do our bit to push for transparency and consultation I urge you once again to write and complain and question the statement made in ECN to the Eastington Parish Clerk: clerk@eastington-pc.gov.uk.

All the best,

Alex