CEC Community Governance Review

Comments of Civic Society 29th January 2020

At our last 2 meetings, members of Nantwich Civic Society have discussed this issue. Our comments are as follows:

We seek the enlargement of the Nantwich Town Council boundary, which will increase the council tax precept to one reflecting the regular users of the town council’s facilities and services. The reasons are: 1.Since the last boundary was drawn many years ago, the size of the town and its immediate contiguous built up area has greatly increased. (We do not have the technical facilities to show maps but we are confident CEC has historic records of the growth of Nantwich and its surroundings.) The same NTC area continues to provide the precept income to the town. Surrounding Parishes do not (except in individual cases of cooperation) 2. In P.C area, the Cronkinson Farm Development has over 1000 dwellings and is mainly over 20 years old. They have a parish council established in different times. The former Stapeley Water Gardens s is nearly complete, with about 200 extra dwellings. 3.Adjacent to the on the West side of the river Weaver, a new development (called Kingsbourne) also of 1000 houses is in course of construction. It completes a contiguous sector of the town, but it lies in an adjacent Parish – Acton, and Henhull. Interestingly, we have come together for individual projects - Nantwich Partnership and Town Council has worked together on several projects with Acton PC., the main one being the 2015 restoration of Nantwich Aqueduct – promoted and implemented by The Canals and Rivers Trust with vital contributions from CEC, Nantwich Town Council and importantly with the whole of one year’s precept form Acton, Edleston and Henhull Parish Council. The sum was not great in total but percentage-wise it was very generous and significant. This example shows how the interests of Nantwich town and the adjacent parish overlap and how we can work together. 4.Other adjacent parishes also have residents, most of whom use Nantwich as their centre for services and amenities of all ranges. 5.With probably 2000 and more households surrounding NTC area, the services and amenities provided in Nantwich by NTC are regularly and unconsciously enjoyed and used by many more people than pay their Council Taxes to NTC. 6.The local Tax Precept of NTC is much higher than the surrounding parishes. NTC provides and contributes to many facilities services and urban realm. Their precept is accordingly high. If the surrounding residential developments, which are currently using these NTC facilities, did contribute to the NTC Tax burden, there would be - and should be –a significant reduction. 7.At present, Nantwich ratepayers are basically subsidising the services, facilities and infrastructure that NTC provides – for adjoining parish residents. 8.With these significant growth areas adjoining the town, it is logical to include them in the NTC boundary to reflect the undeniable functional relationships they enjoy in Nantwich. 9.The precepts paid for example – Band C - are: Nantwich £92.98p. Stapeley £9.68p. Acton Edleston and Henhull £23.77p. Some very nearby residents are getting services and facilities without paying their fair share of costs and NTC Taxpayers are subsidising them. We only want a fair spread of costs to the users of the town. 10.It is time for serious action to review of these boundaries to ensure fairer burden of the Council Tax Precepts in line with changes to the development patterns that have evolved over the recent past. 11.We appreciate that some resistance will be shown by low precept parishes - not just about the extra money but because of emotional attachments to the old boundaries –as well as politicians wanting not to give up some of their places. We do not consider such arguments to be strong enough to override the financial imbalance on NTC taxpayers. 12.As a Civic Society, we consider the needs of this historic town to require more financial contributions form surrounding residents to keep up the vitality and commercial, tourist viability of one of the regions’ most loved small market towns.

Nantwich Civic Society, c/o Nantwich Museum, Pillory Street, Nantwich CW5 5BQ