County councillors formally set council tax for 24/25

Powys county councillors have today formally set council tax, which includes an overall hike for Newtown residents of £153 per year for a Band D property.

At a full council meeting held today (7th March 2023), Powys county councillors have formally approved council tax rates for billing purposes. The new combined Band D rate for Newtown residents is £2,169.80 per annum.

Council tax consists of a local charge for services and is made up of three public bodies - Powys County Council, Dyfed Powys Police and Newtown & Llanllwchaiarn Town Council. All three bodies have increased their council tax charge for the upcoming financial year.

Powys County Council have increased their portion by 7.5%, coming in at £1,638.78 per annum. The Police and Crime Commissioner, Dafydd Llywellyn has increased his portion by 6.2%, collecting £332.03 per annum and Newtown & Llanllwchaiarn Town Council has increased their portion by around 11%, coming in at £198.99 per annum.

These increases mean that the average Band D property will be paying £153.49 more per year.

Annual change for council tax by Band - Newtown residents

As we reported a week ago, Powys County councillors met to discuss and debate their budget for the upcoming year.

Next year’s council budget is set to go up to of £341.2 million after the council were told they would receive a 2.8 per cent increase in funding from the Welsh Government just before Christmas.

To balance next year’s budget a funding gap of £18.458 million needs to be plugged. Of that figure £10.652 million of this will be addressed by the council in a mixture of cuts, savings, and income generation.

Finance portfolio holder Labour’s Cllr David Thomas said: “It’s a very technical report but if you go through it there’s a level of clarity there.”

Director of corporate services and s151 officer Jane Thomas said: “This does not re-open the budget debate that was approved the week before, this is just the calculation around what was approved.

“It’s important that we set the Council Tax before March 11 to meet some of our statutory requirements and any delay would have a significant impact on cashflow, both for this council and other precepting authorities, it’s important to note that.

Councillors then went to a vote and the resolution was approved with 34 councillors voting in favour 12 against and 14 abstentions.