£270,920 to Run Kempsey: What Are We Getting for Our Money?

Every year, a portion of the Council Tax paid by households in Kempsey goes directly to Kempsey Parish Council.

It is known as the parish precept.

It is only one part of your overall Council Tax bill – alongside much larger amounts collected for county and district services, policing and the fire service – but this is money intended to be spent right here in our parish.

So Kempsey.co.uk decided to take a closer look.

How much does Kempsey Parish Council cost us? Where does the money actually go? How much is being spent employing staff? How much money does the Council already have?

And perhaps most importantly, what are residents actually getting for it?

We have looked through the Parish Council’s latest published accounts, its agreed 2026/27 budget and recent Council decisions.

Kempsey Parish Council has set a total budget of £270,920 for 2026/27.

The biggest source of that money is local Council Tax payers.

The Council has requested a parish precept of £186,172.

The rest of its expected income comes from sources including commercial rents, Community Centre and Youth Centre hire, interest, grants, football and cricket use and other income.

Commercial rents are expected to generate £36,575, while Youth Centre hire is expected to bring in £10,000 and bank interest another £10,000.

That means the Parish Council isn’t entirely dependent upon Council Tax, but approximately 69p in every £1 of its expected income this year will come from the parish precept.

The amount being collected through the Kempsey parish precept has also been increasing.

In 2024/25, the Parish Council received £155,187.

In 2025/26, that increased to £169,446.

For 2026/27, the Council has requested £186,172.

That’s an increase of £30,985 in two years – almost 20%.

It doesn’t necessarily mean an individual Kempsey household’s Parish Council charge has risen by exactly 20%. Kempsey continues to grow, with new homes adding to the Council Tax base and spreading the overall precept across more properties.

But the overall amount being collected locally has unquestionably increased.

So where is it going?

The largest individual item in the 2026/27 budget is staffing.

The Council has allocated £118,936 for staff costs – approximately 44% of its entire £270,920 annual budget.

The staffing bill has also been increasing.

The Parish Council’s official accounts show actual staff costs of £78,987 in 2024/25.

In 2025/26, that increased to £100,706.

That’s an increase of £21,719 in a single year, or approximately 27.5%.

For 2026/27, the budget allows for the figure to rise again to £118,936.

That’s almost £40,000 more than was spent on staffing two years previously.

There is an important distinction here.

“Staff costs” does not simply mean salaries going into employees’ bank accounts.

The Council’s accounting return defines the figure as including gross salaries and wages together with employer National Insurance contributions, employer pension contributions and other relevant employment costs.

The published budget doesn’t provide individual employee salaries, so Kempsey.co.uk isn’t going to speculate about what individual members of staff are being paid.

But the overall cost is significant.

For every £10 in the Parish Council’s entire annual budget, approximately £4.40 is budgeted for staff costs.

There is another substantial line in the budget – £25,850 for Service Agreement Payments.

That is separate from the £118,936 staff budget.

Put the two together and they total £144,786, more than half of the Parish Council’s entire £270,920 budget.

It would be wrong to describe all £144,786 as staffing because the Council specifically identifies £118,936 as staff costs.

But a clearer public breakdown of exactly what residents receive for the additional £25,850 in service agreements would be useful.

So what are we actually getting?

Quite a lot of the Parish Council’s work isn’t particularly glamorous.

You probably don’t notice when a bus shelter has been maintained, a piece of play equipment inspected or a community building has passed its fire-alarm test.

But those things still have to happen.

The 2026/27 budget includes £23,000 for utilities for the Council’s community buildings, including the new IT Hub.

There’s £10,000 for insurance and another £10,000 for cleaning the Community Centre, Youth Centre and Pavilion.

There’s £5,000 for legal fees and £3,100 towards maintaining St Mary’s churchyard.

The Council has also budgeted £2,000 for its website, £2,000 for accounting software and another £2,000 for IT support and Parish Office telephones.

Then we get to the more visible spending around the village.

A substantial £19,000 has been allocated towards a replacement bridge at The Rocky.

There’s £3,000 for additional grass cutting, bramble clearance and maintenance and another £1,250 for the watering bowser.

Maintenance of Kempsey’s bus shelters, bins and benches receives £1,080.

Grass cutting in play areas gets £700.

There’s £500 for noticeboard maintenance and another £500 for play equipment maintenance.

Vehicle Activated Sign maintenance has a £200 allocation, while play area inspections receive £175.

The Council also has a “Love Kempsey” budget totalling £3,850.

That includes £1,500 for new benches at The Rocky, £650 for the Christmas tree, £500 towards a village-centre landmark, £500 for Daffodil Day 2027, £400 for summer bedding plants and £300 for daffodil bulbs.

Interestingly, some of the things residents probably associate most strongly with the Parish Council – flowers, Christmas decorations and making the village look attractive – represent a relatively small proportion of the overall budget.

The Parish Council also has responsibility for important community facilities.

For 2026/27, the Community Centres Committee has a budget of £29,350.

That includes £7,600 for the Community Centre, £14,750 for the Youth Centre and £7,000 for the Sports Pavilion.

The Sports Pavilion allocation includes £2,000 for maintenance, £2,000 towards improvements to changing rooms, benches and showers and £3,000 for defibrillator and CPR training.

One major project residents should begin to see is the new IT and Youth Hub at Plovers Rise.

The project has a confirmed cost of £153,227.

Importantly, that £153,227 isn’t simply coming out of Kempsey residents’ Council Tax.

The Parish Council says the project is being fully funded through Malvern Hills District Council Legacy Grant funding.

That’s exactly the sort of external funding we’d like to see the Parish Council continuing to secure. Every pound brought into Kempsey through an external grant is potentially an improvement that doesn’t have to be funded entirely through the parish precept.

And then there’s another number which stands out in the accounts.

£853,315.

At 31 March 2026, Kempsey Parish Council reported balances and reserves of £853,315.

Of that, £845,211 was recorded as cash and short-term investments.

The Council also reported fixed assets and long-term investments/assets worth £1,110,596.

Its reported borrowing was £0.

Before anyone concludes that Kempsey Parish Council simply has £853,000 sitting around doing nothing, it is important to understand how council finances work.

Balances and reserves can contain money specifically earmarked for projects, capital expenditure and future commitments. A large bank balance does not automatically mean every penny is freely available to spend.

But £853,315 is a very substantial amount of public money.

Residents should be able to easily see how much of that money is earmarked, precisely what it is earmarked for and how much remains as genuinely usable general reserves.

There’s another point worth clearing up.

The elected Parish Councillors themselves are not receiving salaries for being councillors. They are volunteers.

The Council considered councillor allowances and resolved not to make financial provision for them for 2026/27.

There remains a small £250 Chairman’s Allowance in the budget, but that’s clearly very different from councillors receiving salaries.

So the £118,936 staff budget relates to the employment side of running the Parish Council, not salaries for elected councillors.

Ultimately, the question isn’t whether the Parish Council does anything.

It clearly does.

Kempsey gets community facilities, recreation areas, environmental work, maintenance, management of the commons, local projects and representation on planning and infrastructure issues.

There are also the less visible everyday responsibilities – contracts, insurance, inspections, administration, managing buildings and dealing with the countless local issues that land on the Parish Council’s desk.

The question is whether residents believe they’re getting £270,920 worth of value from it.

Why did staff costs rise from £78,987 to £100,706 in one year?

Why is the staffing budget now £118,936?

What exactly do residents receive for the additional £25,850 in service-agreement payments?

How much of the £853,315 held in balances and reserves is earmarked, and precisely what is it earmarked for?

How much is genuinely available as a general reserve?

And as the parish precept rises to £186,172, what additional improvements should Kempsey residents expect to see?

None of those questions imply that anything improper has happened.

There is plenty in the accounts that looks positive.

The Council has no reported borrowing. It generates tens of thousands of pounds itself through rents, hire and other income. It has secured substantial external funding for projects rather than relying entirely on Council Tax, and it has significant financial reserves.

But those strengths don’t remove the need for scrutiny.

Kempsey is growing.

That means more residents, more pressure on local facilities and greater expectations about what our village should receive in return.

Perhaps the most important figure isn’t £270,920, £118,936 or even £853,315.

It’s what we can actually see outside our front doors.

Better facilities, well-maintained public spaces, investment in young people, safe play areas, maintained commons, useful community buildings and improvements that keep pace with a growing village.

With £186,172 being collected through the parish precept, £118,936 budgeted for staffing and more than £853,000 reported in balances and reserves, Kempsey residents are entitled to keep asking a very simple question:

What are we getting for our money?