Midsomer Norton arts funding, the festival, Christmas parties and a town fair at Easter are all in doubt, as the Town Council tackles the annual budget.

Details of the proposed cuts are in the agenda for Monday's meeting which looks set to be controversial and will also look at how much the town hall will have to put the precept up.

At the meeting, at 7pm and open to the public, councillors will be told that in order to keep council tax rises next year within the agreed limits, cuts will have to be made. Midsomer Norton Nub News understands that even with the savings residents could face a big increase in next year's community charge.

The cost of next year's council tax, could, even with the cuts, be in double figures. Costs are increasing on Town Hall staff as well as funding for other projects have already been agreed.

The agenda for the meeting on December 5, at The Hollies is HERE

In other news, the Town Council has received a request from the children of William and Joan Readhead (nee Shearn), who wish to plant two trees in memory of their parents. They were Frank Redhead, who served with the Midsomer Norton Home Guard and his wife Joan, who was born in Midsomer Norton, and worked for several years as PA with her father Frank Shearn, a local miller and seeds merchant. Those names may be familiar to many in Midsomer.

And in terms of plans to create a new parliamentary boundary which could see Midsomer joined up with a constituency with Frome, the council seems keen to make clear that, should the boundary be redrawn, it does not wish be a minority partner.

It reports: " While Midsomer Norton Town Council has no objection to the proposed boundary, and welcome being in the same Parliamentary Constituency as Frome, we suggest: The parliamentary constituency should be named Midsomer Norton and Frome CC. There will be two large towns in the constituency, Midsomer Norton in the west and Frome in the east. By naming the constituency after a single town it implies there are no other large towns in the area and that the constituency is centred on that one place which is not true. Frome is currently in the constituency named Somerton and Frome CC. It now makes sense, with Somerton proposed to be in the new constituency of Glastonbury and Somerton CC, that Midsomer Norton and Frome would be in a constituency called Midsomer Norton and Frome CC. Midsomer Norton is by far the largest town in the proposed constituency other than Frome. Midsomer Norton is also the third largest town in the Local Authority."