Working within the council’s Strategy the Budget for 2022/2023 has been set at £2,631,385 this figure is to enable the following services:

  • • Community Services
  • • Civic representation 
  • • Milton Road Cemetery
  • • The Blakehay Theatre
  • • Weston Museum
  • • Tourism Services
  • • Parks & Play areas (21)
  • • Youth Provisions
  • • Street Furniture
  • • Public Toilets
  • • Environmental (Road map to carbon Zero)

More information on expenditure can be found here.

Included within this budget figure the council approved the following pledges at its meeting held 24.01.22. 

  • • Litter Bins – Create an earmarked reserve of £10,000 from the underspend in the Community Wardens budget to provide up to 20 litter bins in locations to be determined, and approved by Community Services Committee. The bins will be emptied by the Community wardens
  • • Homelessness Support – Increase Annual funding from £25,000 to £50,000. The Town Council currently provides £25,000 annual funding to Somewhere to Go for the Night Assessment Centre. We are proposing doubling the funding to include a Service Level Agreement with Somewhere to Go outlining the day services they can provide, and working with North Somerset Council and other partners on hiring a Homelessness Outreach worker.
  • • Climate Change Officer for 2-year fixed-term – Ringfence £30,000 per year for 2 years (Total of £60k) from the Climate Change budget to employ an officer to work specifically on Climate Change projects, thereby freeing up the current Development Officer to work on other projects including new town council headquarters, town quarry, and projects identified for feasibility studies in last year’s budget including new allotments, a plant nursery, showers on the beach, public toilets, making one of our parks disability friendly, and a central Weston community centre. 
  • • Public Toilets at Bus Interchange – Create an earmarked reserve of £10,000 to part-fund a toilet at the new bus interchange in partnership with North Somerset Council, First Bus, and large businesses in the area.
  • • Public Toilet charges – Remove the entry charge on our public toilets – the loss of income is likely to be about £5000. In addition, there will be a cost to change the door entry mechanisms – cost to be confirmed by Sarah Pearse at Council meeting. 

In regards to the toilets as we know this is an important subject. We need to manage expectations as we are going to need to go through the procurement process to get the doors changed. This may take some time. The budget is not there for the work until 1st April 2022.  We will start the background work to hopefully speed up the process. We just wanted to be clear it’s not a simple matter of ‘turning off’ the charges. Details of the toilets this can include are here.

Weston Town Council doesn’t normally cover litter bins as this is under North Somerset Councils’ remit, however, we know there is a need and wish to support our community and North Somerset Council to solve well-known issues. 

Please see this page of our website to learn more about the work we do and how it differs from and compliments North Somerset Council.