As covered in prior newsletters it is felt necessary to significantly increase the service charge paid per property (private residential & commercial) in 2022. The reason for this is the ageing of the site and the increasing need to undertake costly maintenance to areas owned by the Village Association, examples include the work to sections of the Boundary wall owned by the VA in 2019, repairs to drainage in Brigade Place in 2020 and the work to numerous trees this year following the tree survey.

Each year the Village Association spends over £300,000 on behalf of members maintaining the look, feel and safety of The Village. This includes the landscaping, the Wardens and many smaller day to day expenditures we need to make in order to maintain what we have. The areas the Village Association are responsible for maintaining are significant and varied and can easiest be seen on the Village plans, marked in pink. These can be viewed and downloaded from our website www.thevillageassociation.org/plans.

Each year we contribute to our savings, known as reserves, so that we have money available in the event of an unscheduled or significant maintenance job. The money we have saved has therefore been going up, however we have also had to spend more in recent years and with the site now almost 20 years old more and more maintenance is going to be required. We do therefore need a greater level of reserves, currently our reserves are in the region of £80,000. We believe these need to be over £100,000, ideally over £120,000 as a minimum going forward given the size and age of the site. Historically the annual increase to the service charge is 2 - 3% we anticipate this needing to be closer to 10% in 2022.

We are finalising the budget for 2022 which will include the increase to the service charge. This will all be shared with members ahead of the AGM on the 23 November, where it will be discussed and there will be an opportunity for questions.