'Ridiculous': Opposition blasts £9 million council cuts

For several months, Powys County Council’s deputy council leader and finance portfolio holder, Conservative Councillor Aled Davies, has been preparing residents for cuts and a council tax hike that could be as much as 12 per cent.

He said: “We know that following the cut in Welsh Government support and increasing service pressures, particularly in social care, we are facing a budget gap of around £14 million for 2019/2020 and a further £20 million in the three following financial years.

“The reality facing the council is that not even a significant increase in the rate of council tax will prevent a number of valued services including libraries, roads and street lighting face reductions.

“We will have to ask ourselves can we afford the branch libraries we operate, the number of offices and buildings we fund.

“Will we have to reduce the length of roads we repair, the number of street lights we power and the number of open spaces we maintain.

“As a council we are facing some of the most challenging decisions of our political lives, decisions that I am sure will be unpopular.”

Liberal Democrat and Green group leader Councillor James Gibson-Watt said: “The attempt to lay the blame for the county council’s financial problems on the settlements it has received from Welsh Government is ridiculous and unworthy.

“It ignores the fact that he and his colleagues have failed to control persistent overspending in a number of council departments.

“It also ignores the fact that the tight financial settlements for local government across Wales are a direct result of severe restrictions of funding to local government in England by his Conservative colleagues in the UK Government.

'Disaster'

“This has had a very adverse consequential effect on the block grant devolved from Westminster to the Welsh Government in Cardiff, which has done its best to protect Welsh local government and the vital services it provides.”

Plaid Cymru group leader Councillor Elwyn Vaughan said: “The situation is a disaster for Powys.

“We have a Conservative Westminster Government with an austerity agenda, and a Welsh Government that seems to forget large swathes of Wales and a local authority which historically has lacked vision and strategic thinking thus cumulating in the current disaster.”

“With reserves going down, the increasing funding challenges within education, the huge pressures within social services I fear for the sustainability of Powys Council in a couple years time, and it is not tenable to pile the pressure on our rate payers."

Councillor Mathew Dorrance said: “The budget statement released by the Conservative and Independent controlled council shows their failure to properly plan service delivery or the council’s finances.”

“While it’s clear UK Government austerity is hurting local services and our communities, the failure of the Conservative and Independent controlled council to plan services and the council’s finances properly have made a bad situation even worse.”

Councillor Dorrance pointed to a series of budget tests, that Labour has come up with on the settlement.

“Our budget tests are a carefully thought out set of priorities that we believe the council must meet before we support any proposals they bring forward,” he added.

The budget will be decided by full council towards the end of February.