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 Sarah Bevan (Independents) and Gavin Heathcote, Chairman of the Peasedown Community Trust, 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 Sarah Bevan, 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 2023/24 B&NES Council Budget.”

The proposals, some of which were presented to the council’s leadership in November 2022, are:

• £50,000 to resurface the road through Carlingcott

• £20,000 for additional hedge maintenance and path clearance in the village

• £25,000 to replace out-dated play equipment

They're also asking for the reinstatement of the Ward Councillors' Empowerment Fund at a total of £59,000 per year (that's £1,000 for each councillor to allocate to community projects in their area).

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

"The funding for road resurfacing has been one of our most frequent requests in recent years. The Council needs to be doing more to allocate funding for road repairs and maintenance in North East Somerset, 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 2023/24 budget will be agreed by a meeting of the Full Council on Tuesday, 21st February at the Guildhall in Bath.