THE Leaders of all four opposition groups on Powys County Council have issued a joint statement warning of the dangers of the Independent/Conservative coalition proposals to increase Council Tax.

Council tax in Powys is set to rise by 3.9 per cent from April this year at the same time as more cuts to services are being imposed.

Tomorrow (January 26), Powys County Council's cabinet is expected to be presented with the draft budget for 2021/22 by finance portfolio holder Cllr Aled Davies (Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant & Llansilin/Conservative).

Cllrs James Gibson-Watt (Welsh Liberal Democrat-Green), Matthew Dorrance (Welsh Labour), Jeremy Pugh (Action for Powys) and Elwyn Vaughan (Plaid Cymru) said: “While the ruling coalition may wish to use the excuse of the extra costs of the Covid-19 pandemic as justification for these proposals, those costs have in large part been met by extra money provided by the Welsh Government.

"A combination of poor control of departmental budgets by Cabinet Members, glaring examples of overspending on current capital projects and a capital programme funded by borrowing that threatens to impose huge extra revenue costs on the Council in the next few years has led us to this position.

“A Council Tax increase of 3.9 per cent in 2021/22 will mean that Council Tax increases have exceeded 27 per cent over the past four years, an average increase year on year of nearly seven per cent. Conservative councillors were all elected in 2017 on a commitment not to increase Council Tax at all during this Council term. Politicians making promises to the electorate that they then do not keep badly erodes trust in democracy and damages the Council’s reputation.”

“As opposition groups we will be scrutinising this draft Budget closely and will do all we can to find ways to reduce the Council Tax burden on Powys residents while limiting as far as possible the cuts that the current coalition is looking to impose.