Production of the parish’s audited accounts for 2024 were delayed as a knock-on of the parish failing to publish annual accounts for more than three years, since 2020.
2023 returned a deficit of nearly £260,000, and last year this dropped to a shortfall of £52,000. This had followed a period during which, as constable Ken Acott put it at this week’s parish meeting, ‘we had some really tricky issues to address’.
Among those issues were the missing accounts from 2021, 2022 and 2023 which were produced at the start of this year.
Mr Acott’s view is that the deficit was largely due to poor budgeting and insufficient funds being raised through the parish rates.
Now the parish receives quarterly management accounts, he told the meeting.
‘Looking at the September figures we appear to be on budget,’ he said.
‘I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we come up near the break-even line. We’re pleased with the way it’s gone. It’s been a tough year.’
But he warned parishioners at the meeting that costs were rising and increases were likely in the next budget, with the cost of the waste contract likely to rise by 12% due to the parish’s contractor buying new vehicles.
The challenge this year has been reflected in a shortage of resources and the douzaine is currently looking to recruit seven new members in an election on 19 November.
This has led to a delay in getting Project St Peter Port, plans for the parish’s future, off the ground.
‘It has developed from a vision and there is activity,’ said Mr Acott, ‘but we’ll really get into it in the new year when we have a fully resourced douzaine.’
Among the plans is for the parish floral committee to be re-established, re-instituting festoon lighting along the seafront – Mr Acott hoped this could be done in time for the Christmas lights switch-on – and to tackle the problem of cigarette butts on the Town streets. And the parish will also be replacing its ‘you are here’ information boards, starting at the Weighbridge.
‘They’re a bit long in the tooth and were fading and some of the information needed updating,’ he said.
‘We’ve tried to express things in a much more concise way.’
You need to be logged in to comment. If you had an account on our previous site, you can migrate your old account and comment profile to this site by visiting this page and entering the email address for your old account. We'll then send you an email with a link to follow to complete the process.