Councillor urges Cabinet to use budget surplus to repair potholes

A budget surplus from last year should be used to fix potholes in Powys a senior councillor has urged.

And questions were raised on whether all the cuts and savings totalling just under £15.4 million from last year, are permanent.

Members of the Liberal Democrat/Labour Cabinet received a report on the final position of Powys County Council’s budget for 2023/2024.

The council had achieved a surplus of just over £2.3 million on its total budget of £326.621 million for last year.

This figure will drop to £1.793 million when money is taken away from the total to be squirrelled away in council reserve accounts.

Finance portfolio holder, Labour’s councillor Cllr David Thomas explained that the report had been delayed due to the General Election which took place on July 4.

Conservative group leader who is also the chairman of the Finance Panel which scrutinises the council’s finances, Cllr Aled Davies said: “£1.8 million would go quite some way to repair some potholes.

“I have residents in my ward (Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant and Llansilin) that live along roads where potholes have not been plugged as emergency repairs for two years.

“One couple in particular, both have had serious operations and find it physically painful to travel along the roads because of the potholes.”

“That underspend would allow some repairs to be brought forward.”

The report also shows that the council services found cuts, savings, and efficiencies worth £15.373 million of an original target of £16.5 million for the year.

Cllr Davies said: “A press release was put out which spoke of deliving savings of £15.4 million and that this is permanent recurring year on year.

“That conflicts with one of the savings in the original budget when there was a reduction to the revenue contribution to the transport reserves, was money taken out in that year to be put back in this financial year.”

“This wasn’t a permanent saving.”

This referred to an annual contribution of £1.398 million made by the highways, transport, and recycling department towards its vehicle replacement programme.

This was taken out of the 2023/2024 budget as a saving, but the payment is supposed to resume this year.

Cllr Davies: “Could Cllr Thomas explain what has happened to the transport reserve.

“Were all the savings permanent or just one year.”

He added it was important that the council put out “accurate statements” into the public domain.

Cllr Thomas could not answer immediately and said he would “take it away” to get some clarification from the service and come back to Cllr Davies with an answer.

Cabinet then noted the 2023/2024 year end budget position and agreed a number of internal budget transfers known as virements.