Shropshire town to raise £90,000 to help secure local services from threat of cuts
A town council will be raising its part of next year's local tax by a total of £85,000 to secure their future in the face of cuts being made by the county council.
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Church Stretton Town Council carried out a consultation on services at risk to find out if local residents would support the move.
They did and the town council held an extraordinary meeting to decide to raise additional precept money to help keep the town's library and the swimming pool.
The council has an understanding from Shropshire Council that the leisure centre can continue to operate without this support.
“The results of Church Stretton Town Council’s Services at Risk consultation strongly supported the proposal to increase the local precept in order to save the town’s library, swimming pool and leisure centre from the threat of closure resulting from Shropshire Councils budget pressures,” said a spokesperson from the town council.
“The figures decided upon were £70,000 per annum for the swimming pool and £15,000 for the library, with the friends of Church Stretton Library raising an additional £5000 contribution.
“This means that Church Stretton will be sending £90,000 a year to Shropshire Council in order to retain these services.
“It’s the town council’s expectation that these sums will be sufficient, but this will be confirmed with Shropshire Council in the more detailed negotiations to come.”
The spokesperson added that the town council is “incredibly grateful” to residents who returned the survey, to both Stretton Pool Action Group, the Friends of Church Stretton Library and Shropshire Council for working 'proactively' to save these services.
“We believe we have an approach that will maintain them for us and future generations and we’d encourage all, to please use and support them,” the spokesperson said.
