With just weeks to go until Bath and North East Somerset Council meets to debate the next financial year’s budget, community leaders in Peasedown St John have released details of funding requests they’ve made for their community.

Councillors Karen Walker and Gavin Heathcote (Independents) have been in discussions with Council leaders since November in a bid to ensure Peasedown St John isn’t left out of any new spending plans.

Cllr Karen Walker said: “The role of any local Councillor is to always put their community first. On a regular basis, Cllr Gavin Heathcote and I meet with residents, visit them in their homes, and discuss issues that matter to them.

After several months of Advice Surgeries and street surveys, we’ve put together a wish-list of items that residents have told us they’d like to see included in the 2024/25 B&NES Council Budget.”

The proposals, some of which were presented to the Council’s leadership in November 2023, are:

Karen and Gavin are also part of a cross-party campaign that would like to see extra funding being made available for community libraries. Independent, Green, Labour and back-bench Lib Dem Councillors have been lobbying the Council Leadership for additional support for the 11 voluntary-run libraries across the district.

Cllr Gavin Heathcote added: “All of our proposals are based on requests that residents have put to us over the last year.

“The additional funding for hedge maintenance and path clearance has been one of the most frequent requests in recent years. The Council needs to be doing more to allocate funding for these issues in rural areas, not just in the city of Bath.

“Peasedown residents pay their Council Tax too and want to see the Local Authority distributing funds more fairly!”

The 2024/25 budget will be agreed by a meeting of the Full Council on Tuesday, 20th February at the Guildhall in Bath.