Town councillors met on Monday night (10th November) to discuss their recommendation for the forthcoming budget for the town council for 2015-2016.

A total of £235,882 has been calculated to cover all finance anticipated for the forthcoming year.

Included in this figure is; £36,900 for the Community Affairs Committee whose remit includes the community grant schemes and the town guide; £47,600 for the Environmental Affairs Committee, who deal with town management, street decorations and town centre enhancement and the rest goes towards CCTV contributions, Agincourt Street toilets with a £25,000 contribution for devolved services. This last item arises from a request from Monmouthshire County Council (MCC) for contributions towards services that may otherwise face cuts.

MCC are looking for £100,000 from the five towns towards keeping services such as street cleaning and town libraries at their present level.

Also included in their calculation was an extra £12,500 for extra admin support which will help with this devolution of services.

With reserves of £95,000, councillors were confident to put forward their recommendation to the next Monmouth Town Council meeting on 8th December that their precept - the amount of money they will receive from MCC - would be £235,882 for the following year, up by £48,458 from 2014-2015 precept of £187,424.