Cllr John Gadie, of Drake Road, Newton Abbot, writes:

I write after attending the town council's precept setting on Wednesday last week.

I was happy to second the amendment proposed by Cllr Shantry to remove £10,000 from the budget, thus freezing the precept for residents.

This £10,000 'buffer', on top of the already existing reserves has, from what I can see, never been used. It is simply there in case anything comes up that councillors fancy spending money on.

Our reserves are the highest they have been, in cash terms, ever. Coupled with this is the fact that the majority of residents are simply not two per cent better off this year than last year.

With this in mind I consider raising the precept, especially when other local authorities are freezing theirs, to be the wrong thing to do. However, we were told that the difference between freezing the precept and raising it would be mere 'tinkering' and the rise was voted through.

The town council has done well to budget for so much which benefits the town, including the centenary of the commencement of the Great War, but we should be careful of taking residents for granted in these straitened times.

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