Residents urged to stand as new Kingsthorpe Parish Council holds first ever meeting

The parish council was set up as a response to the upcoming formation of the new West Northamptonshire unitary council. The unitary will effectively merge the borough and district councils in Northampton, Daventry and South Northants into one much larger council which will deliver the vast majority of services.

It is hoped the formation of a new parish council will give a stronger voice for Kingsthorpe residents which may be lost in the creation of the larger unitary. It is yet to be determined what the parish council could take on, but parishes often take over the running of community assets such as local parks, green spaces and community centres.

The new parish council is currently being run by existing borough councillors in the Kingsthorpe area. Obelisk ward councillor Samuel Kilby-Shaw has been appointed as the chairman, while Sunnyside councillor Nilesh Parekh was named as his deputy. Kate Houlihan has been appointed as the parish clerk.

Elections are due to be held for the new authority on May 6. Councillor Sally Beardsworth said: “We’re going to try and make this non-political, and hopefully make it so that other people will join us that have got a keen interest in the area. I’m hoping that people who may be watching tonight will put their name forward, because we need 15 councillors across the whole area to make sure the representation is right.”

Councillor Beardsworth enquired about the level of precept that residents would now have to pay to the parish in their council tax bill. She said: “People ought to know that even though it’s not been finalised now. We have a large increase that’s going to come into being with West Northants Council, there’s going to be a 1.99 per cent tax increase plus the 2.99 per cent increase for social care, and then you have the Police and Crime Commissioner. So we’re talking about seven per cent on a band D bill, so I want to let people know what we will be asking of them.”

Lesley Sambrook-Smith, of the Northamptonshire County Association of Local Councils (Northants CALC), told Councillor Beardsworth that any money raised in the local area would be spent in the local area. She added: “If the existing budget is accepted without any amendments, then the band D property figure would work out at £32.11 a year, which is 59p a week. Obviously if you have council tax rebates you won’t pay all of that, and if you live in band A it will be much less.”

The chairman, Councillor Kilby-Shaw, said that the figure was ‘less than half’ of the national average of £75 for a parish council precept.

The budget for the parish council’s first year of existence is set to be voted on at a full council meeting of Northampton Borough on Monday, with the borough’s deputy monitoring officer Laurie Gould saying: “This is a contingency budget, so it’s a start-up budget for the council. Eventually one would hope once you’re set up and going you’ll want to consider all sorts of expenditure and initiatives you want to adopt, but this is a starter budget for your first year of operation.”