District Council tax frozen for the second year

LAST night (February 16), South Oxfordshire District Council agreed to freeze its council tax rate for the second year running.

In setting its budget the council included additional investment in car parking, support for the regeneration of Berinsfield and funding to help provide accommodation for rough sleepers.

More than £1,000,000 in grants is being made available to support community projects, such as improvements to village halls and providing new sports areas.

The district council will also invest a further £500,000 over the next two years to help deliver Superfast Broadband to more communities across the district.

To help raise further funds for local voluntary and community groups the council will be introducing a new local lottery scheme during 2017, giving residents the opportunity to win while raising money for a chosen cause or general good cause fund. Almost £99,000 will also go towards increasing volunteering and volunteering opportunities across the district.

New Lottery Scheme

The local lottery scheme will be a weekly lottery that will directly support good causes that benefit the community of South Oxfordshire. The money raised through the scheme will be spent on providing essential support to a wide range of local organisations.

The district council has stated that the new volunteering funding will provide resources to help get more people in the district volunteering. There will be a new grant scheme to encourage people to take up volunteering where costs may be a barrier, such as sports coaching qualifications or insurance costs for volunteer drivers, and there will also be new support to facilitate volunteering through the development of an online brokerage service to link potential volunteers with volunteering opportunities.

One of Thame’s District Cllrs, Nigel Champken Woods, told Thame.net: “We said in our Manifesto that we would keep any increases in Council Tax to a minimum which we have been able to do by careful management by Councillors and Staff at SODC and would encourage all organisations in Thame, who are eligible, to bid for grants which will be available.”

New money for Thame groups

Cllr Jeanette Matelot Green added: “We are introducing a Councillors Allowance Scheme where each councillor will receive a £5000 allowance which they can use to offer grants to local community groups. Thame will benefit well from this as we have three ward members. Details will be sorted out by May and we will then be looking for projects. It’s not money to be spent on one project but hopefully smaller amounts to many organisations. For instance, if a community group needed a computer, we could fund that.”