Late intervention sees Welshpool Council Tax rise cut to 6.91%
A fifth draft of the budget, including a proposed 9.97% rise, was due to be discussed by the Full Council last night, but Cllr Morag Bailey spent the day trawling through the final draft with Finance Officer, Venessa Voysey, and was able to identify more savings.
The biggest saving identified was a proposed £22,500 payment to the pension shortfall, but after Cllr Bailey intervened, a call was made to Powys County Council and a more accurate figure of £10,100 was added to the budget instead.
Reductions were also made to the budgets for administration, play equipment and staff training to create a new budget of £781,000, down from the previous figure of £801,000. Last year’s budget was £731,075.
Cllr Bailey was praised by fellow councillors for her scrutiny work, with agreement to pass the budget at Full Council last night.
“We really have got it down to the bare minimum,” said Cllr Bailey.
It means that an average Band D property, which currently pays £260.41, will see that increase by around £17 a year. It was set to £26.
This will be added to the near 9% increases to Council Tax being added by Dyfed-Powys Police and expected to be added by Powys County Council. That could see an overall increase in the region of £150 a year when all three chunks are added together.
For the 2024/25 financial year, there were approximately 2,807 properties in the Welshpool area, with most, 33%, categorised as Band C.
Last year, Welshpool Town Council set a below inflation increase of around 3.9% to their precept, a figure that Mayor, Cllr Phil Owen, said “year-on-year saw our revenue decrease”.
At the moment, Welshpool residents pay the second highest Council Tax in Powys, behind Machynlleth.
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