From our Reporter at the Parish Council Meeting
MONEY!
Likewise, Finance! Budget! All these boring but necessary words reverberated
around the Village Hall on the evening of 8th January., the first PC meeting of
the year 2004. A visitor from another country or another planet, who sat in on
this meeting, would surmise that local government at all levels in Britain was
running straight into bankruptcy. If the parish asked for money from the
District, or the District from the County - or (doubtless) the County from the
Government, the answer would come back: "They haven't got as much
money as we haven't got." But the questions were not only: please may
we have a larger grant? though this was one complaint "If you want us to
do this additional job, we must have more money to do it with." Sometimes
the question was: "What about that additional grant you promised us last
August?" Or "How can we draw up a budget for the 2003-04 financial
year when we don't know how much money we are to get until half-way through
the year?" It is odd how everybody else makes a muddle, or causes delay,
but never US. Life's like that.
When it came to a purely internal parish-pump matter, grass-cutting, the questions were not so much job-related: "Is it being done well? Where is it to be done? How many cuts per year? Will the same contractor do it?" By then, we were all so finance orientated that we asked: "How much did we budget for this last year? How much have we already paid-out? Is there any more left in the kitty for this year?" But on the subject of grass, it was noted that the recreation-ground/playingfield has been cut, and now we want people to go and play on it. (Perhaps we should put up goal posts, to show the world what the field it is meant-for).
When it came to Real Money, we were quite generous and open-handed. Clerk's salary-and-expenses went through without delay. So did a donation of £50 to Bottisham Village College, which needs local-interest-financial-support as backing for its request to become a special-status-school for the Humanities. The minimal discussion on this point made me long to ask what exactly the Humanities are, besides geography and citizenship. Another minor financial matter was a grant from a horse-owning individual who has given us a small donation in respect of the use of the cemetery tap-and-hosepipe for her horse-trough. When Trevor was asked how this little payment should be recorded he said firmly "On the INCOME side of he balance-sheet". Good to know that money moves in as well as out.
It was noted that a forestry contractor is about to attend to the cutting or pruning or trimming of some trees overhanging the Village Hall car park. Andrew was asked to supervise the work if possible when the tree cutter comes, to make sure that the right one is felled; Andrew would be sure to know his whitebeam from his beech.
Roads featured during the meeting to a small extent. Though the Fordham bypass is due to be started within the next half year, the existing road, the A142 between Newmarket and Ely is so badly worn that major road-works will be undertaken during 2004. So portions will be coned-off, with single-lane working and consequent delays for most of the current year: allow an extra half-hour, if driving that way to Ely.