WiNSpace and Financial Support Survey Results

Published: 08 January 2024

In June 2021, we asked you to take part in a consultation on the WiNSpace project. The consultation asked you whether the Parish Council should provide support to Winscombe Community Association (WCA) for the WiNSpace project by:

1. The Council offering a gift of £250,000 to the project which would result in an increase in your precept payment of around £6 per household per year over 30 years (representing about an 8% increase on the 2021 precept)

2. In addition to the gift do you support a loan of £250,000 with security taken for this against the existing Community Centre.

The results of the consultation (received in August 2021) can be found through the ‘News’ section of the Parish Council website. To summarise the results, a majority of respondents were in favour of this course of action.

Since June 2021, a lot has changed, both locally and nationally. Planning permission has been granted, though the project will now look slightly different (an update on the progress of WiNSpace can be found here: https://winspace.org.uk/deliver-winspace-2024/). We have also seen a significant rise in inflation and interest rates. The latter has increased the annual cost of repayments associated with the gift of £250,000 by nearly 50% compared with 2021. We now expect this to cost £18,000 per annum, which would account for £8.15 (or 9.7%) of an annual precept of £84.02 for a typical household. This is an increase of £0.91 (or 1%) on what a typical household currently pays in 2023/24.

The Parish Council has increased the precept in the last two years (2022/23 and 2023/24), as required by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, in order to prepare for the financing of the gift. However, in light of the above changes, and as part of our due diligence process, we would like to gather the views of parishioners.

WiNSpace Survey Results