TOWN councillors in Wellington have decided to nearly double council tax bills for residents as they take on and run services being abandoned by Somerset Council.
The 96.4 per cent increase will take the average household Band D bill to £166.29, equivalent to £3.20 a week.
It means the town council will be able to more than double its spending budget from £466,332 to £945,392 for the coming financial year.
Councillors agreed the rise to allow them to:
Take over public toilets in North Street car park and Wellington Park,
Pay for bedding plants and security for the park
Provide and maintain hanging baskets and planters in the town centre
Repair children’s play area equipment, continue operating town centre CCTV cameras
Pay for minor highways works such as verge maintenance, surface water drainage, removing weeds, cleaning signs, and cutting back vegetation
Subsidise a school crossing patrol for St John’s Primary School
Councillors also agreed that in 2025-26 they would take on the ownership and management of all the green spaces in the town, including the park, Wellington Playing Fields and Recreation Ground, and 17 more children’s play areas.
They included £350,000 in this year’s budget in to start preparing for the new open spaces responsibilities.
Somerset Council has said it will stop funding many services as it tries to bridge a £100 million budget gap and avoid going bankrupt, leaving parishes to either go without or pick up the tab.
Wellington Mayor Cllr Marcus Barr said: “We thought long and hard about what we should do.
“On the one hand, we were very conscious of the financial pressure that would be placed on the community by taking on what Somerset Council was saying it was going to stop delivering or would start charging us for.
“But on the other felt there really was no alternative if we want the town to continue to thrive and be the great place to live and work that it is.
“We looked long and hard at all aspects of our budget to try to minimise the impact of the increases.
“This situation, while challenging, does provide us with the opportunity to do things differently and better for the benefit of the town and we will be spending the next year reviewing what we have taken on and looking at how we can best manage the green spaces that are going to come our way in 2025.
“By taking ownership of these facilities and services both now and next year we can be more responsive and do things that we want to do, rather than having to take our turn alongside other town and parish councils in the county.”
Cllr Barr said Wellington was not alone in facing such challenges, with other town councils also increasing their precept to take on services no longer delivered by the unitary council.
He said Wellington’s increase was less than the 173 per cent Taunton increase and Bridgwater’s 163.5 per cent hike.
The town council meeting on Wednesday evening (January 31) followed on from a well-attended first of its kind public open forum for residents to have their say on the situation and what they thought councillors should do.
An online public consultation was also held with more than 160 responses received before the meeting, where 99 per cent of comments by residents were supportive and understanding of the town council’s position and the need for councillors to step up and take on services despite the extra cost.
Town clerk Dave Farrow told the public forum the evening’s budget meeting was probably the most important and challenging in the council’s 50-year history.
Mr Farrow said the decisions made by councillors would set the direction of travel for the council for the foreseeable future.
He explained that despite Wellington being the sixth largest town in Somerset, its budget was only the 15th largest in the county, while the Band D average council tax bill was ranked 51st alongside villages such as Brushford, on Exmoor.
Mr Farrow also pointed out that 75 per cent of properties in Wellington were below the council tax Bands D and would therefore pay proportionally less.