Grantham Town Council needs £138,000 - treble what it was allocated when it was formed

A town council says it needs treble the amount of money it was originally allocated when it formed last year.

Grantham Town Councillors agreed to propose its budget setting and precept of £138,559 for 2025/2026 in a meeting on Thursday last week (January 9).

The town council was formed in May and South Kesteven District Council set a budget of £46,000 last year for the town council - meaning the town council says it needs treble what was originally set for it.

This means for residents, they will pay £12.10 a year for Grantham Town Council’s portion of the bill in 2025/26 for the average Band D property, compared to just £3.96 in 2024/25.

In the meeting, Councillor Lee Steptoe (Lab) said he was "genuinely torn” on the proposals, and said the Labour party would be abstaining from the vote.

He said: “I made my views clear at the last meeting and the finance committee.

“It’s obvious that there needs to be a substantial increase in the precept.

“But, there will be significant pushback, especially online, social media.

“There will be a blow back. So I think based on discussions that the Labour councillors have had, we are going to abstain on this.

“We cannot proactively support this budget for the reasons that I have stated. But, also in the spirit of constructive working, we have no intention of trying to block it by voting against it.”

In response to Coun Steptoe, Councillor John Morgan (Ind) said that last year he “expected the precept to go up because it was too low”.

Town councillors also discussed the requirement to include funding for future election charges that the town council would have to pay towards the 2027 local elections - estimated to be about £30,000.

It is intending to split this money over the next two budgets meaning £15,000 of the money raised from the precept will be put towards this cost.

Councillor Tim Harrison (Ind) said: “We have to get it in the bag ready to pay because we won’t get the period of growth we have to pay for this one.”

Setting aside £15,000 for events was also discussed.

Coun Stokes said that it was to give the council more “opportunity” to hold events over the year.

A discussion over the salaries of the town council staff as part of the budget led to the meeting going into private session.