UTTOXETER Town Hall is a marvellous venue for live concerts because of its superb acoustics.
Local musical groups, such as The Marchington Singers, have much enjoyed performing there over many years.
In 2004 they performed with two young students from the Royal Academy of Music, who are now international stars.
The audience at that time can count themselves very lucky to have heard Lucy Crowe and Katherine Jenkins before they became famous.
If the town hall was improved, no doubt many other local music and arts groups would want to hire it.
Congratulations to Uttoxeter Town Council for taking the bold step to raise £100,000 from the 2012/13 Parish Precept to carry out essential improvements to the town hall.
This community building, like churches, has to be preserved for future generations, so the costs of essential repairs and maintenance have to be funded somehow.
With sources of grants, such as the Lottery, being diverted into major projects such as the Olympics (but that's another story), the options for funding improvements to local community facilities have been dramatically restricted.
The onus falls on town and parish councils to raise the money.
It may not be realised, but there is no restriction on the amount of money these councils can raise from their precepts — within reason of course.
The question is should the burden of paying for these projects fall upon local residents through their council tax payments? I believe it should, because community facilities such as town halls and village halls are maintained for the benefit of the community, and parish precept contributions are strictly targeted to specified community causes and projects — unlike government taxes. By paying a parish precept, every tax payer in the community makes a contribution towards specific projects that could be of benefit them.
The increase in the parish precept for Uttoxeter will add £29 per year (56 pence per week) to the band D council tax of around £1,500.
And although it will have increased by 39 per cent in the coming financial year, it's still only 2 per cent of the total band D council tax charge.It will be interesting to see what the reaction is from Uttoxeter residents when they receive their council tax demands for the coming year. Can I suggest that readers write to the editor of this paper, or direct to the town council with their views.
Tim Scott
Doveridge.
