County farmers making a profit
Farms run by a Mid Wales council made a profit of almost £350,000 last year, it has been revealed.
Fears that Powys County Council's county farms estate was in debt by £7,628 were based on a false assumption, according to the authority's head of environmental services Steve Burgess.
He told the council's principal scrutiny committee yesterday, that the loss was only in relation to a target figure, set by the council previously.
The matter had been raised by Councillor Barry Thomas, who said the loss had been recorded by officers in response to a written question from him at a county council meeting on October 26.
"It is most disturbing to learn that an estate totalling some 11,616 acres and comprising 172 holdings should be making a net loss of £7,628 per annum," he wrote in a letter to the council's monitoring officer.
Mr Burgess said the loss was nothing more than a "paper exercise".
"While the figure is correct, the loss is strictly technical in as much as the target contribution to the council's treasury for 2005 to 2006 undershot by that amount," he said.
"Instead of making a contribution of £356,719, a sum of £349,091 was realised."
He said the target contribution was shown in the business accounts under the heading 'capital charges': "A capital charge is an estimate of the amount that might reasonably be earned by an asset over a period of a year."
