4% rise in council tax is “fair and reasonable” says Council Leader

Council Tax in Wrexham is set to increase by 4%, with a senior councillor stating it is one percent below general inflation.

Welsh Government recently announced the ‘best settlement in decades’ for Wrexham Council, the sixth highest increase in Wales.

The proposed budget sheet details the £280m council income, made up of £73m from council tax and £207m from Welsh Government funding, up from £70m/£188m for 21/22.

In the report before councillors on the council’s budget they are told, “The 2022/23 settlement gives opportunity for recovery of ground, rather than additional investment, given the accumulation of significant demand pressures the Council is currently facing, and will face, over the next three years. Whilst 2022/23 is better than expected, years two and three of the settlement are lean compared to anticipated inflation and demand pressures.”

Council Leader Mark Pritchard announced the subsequent taxation rate, “I’m really pleased that the decision has been made by the Alliance, coalition, working in true partnership to keep the council tax law within Wrexham. We worked really hard on it, and we are announcing that the council tax will be set to 4%.

“That’s an agreement between the three groups, David Bithell’ Independent group, the Conservatives and ourselves. I’m really pleased with that because we’ve worked extremely hard to bring the council tax down in Wrexham, but also to continue to deliver the valuable services on the back of very demanding times.”

Highlighting some areas of the budget Cllr Pritchard added, “We have agreed to put an extra funding stream into the Citizens Advice Bureau, an extra £30,000 pounds a year to help to support them and to help to support our constituents of Wrexham, some who are finding things extremely difficult and help them with support and professional advice.

“We’re going to put an extra £30,000 pound into music services, which was discussed in the past, and we are in a position now to reinvest, to put money back into that.

“Also, we’re looking to take away the charges for the blue badges within Wrexham. So if you’re a blue badge holder, you be able to park fee and there won’t be a charge.”

Cllr Pritchard also announced extra officer positions being funded in planning enforcement, assets, and adding HMOs will also now get extra resource, “We have also agreed to put an extra enforcement officer into that, an enforcement officer will work in the areas of the HMOs – houses of multiple occupation. That’s important because we’ve all recognised that the HMOs need checks and balances and we need to have the resources in that area to do so.”

Wrexham.com pointed to the historic reduction in funding to the Citizen Advice services and music service cuts, and asked if the administration was performing a u-turn. Cllr Pritchard said, “No, it isn’t a u-turn. I think it’s an understanding of what fantastic service the Citizens Advice deliver here in Wrexham. We have to be honest here, we have taken £60 million pounds out of our budget. We’ve lost £60 million, and we had to make tough decisions. We had to. None of us wanted to cut services, none of us wanted to take money away from our partnerships and partners. We didn’t want to, but we had to and that happened all over Wales. What we’re doing very early, is recognising where we have to put some money back in.”

“I think we should celebrate it, that we can do this and as we move on into the future, we’ll continue to do that. There will be other organisations who will want help and support, and if we’ve got the funding, we will support them. Why wouldn’t we?”

Pointing to the ever increasing cost of living, and further fuel cost rises, we asked how they would explain the reason for the rise to the public.

Cllr Pritchard said, “We worked hard, we did not want to set the council tax up 2% 3% and then we have to make cuts and see redundancies and reduce services, we understand that whenever there’s a council tax increase, people are not happy.  I think there has to be a sustainable service within Wrexham and across all the other authorities in Wales. I’m sure there’ll be authorities in Wales putting 1% or 2% or 0% on it because there’s an election next year, we could have done that, but that wouldn’t have been fair to Wrexham Council or the residents just because it is an an election year.

“We brought it down at 4% because we believe that we can invest in Wrexham and the areas we said, and also have sustainable delivery of services. I think we’ve done well, I think it’s a fair reasonable council tax and I hope it gets full support at Full Council.”

Deputy Leader Cllr David A Bithell said, “I know it’s difficult, people are struggling out there with energy costs, cost of living. RPI is 7% CPI is 5% so I think by setting it a 4%. We are a percent below general inflation.

“We are looking to invest in key areas but also continuing to support and invest in our pressures and demands in Children’s Services and Adult Social Care. We’ve made some good progress in key services and we have a duty and a responsibility to do that.

“Also we will invest in another million pound into our roads and infrastructure.”

“The big thing for me in the budget is what the leader touched on –  is sustainability. In the past, we’ve had our hands tied behind our backs, with reduced funding from Welsh Government. This time, we’ve got an opportunity to invest to support and maintain our public services and I think that’s key really, as we build from a pandemic into recovery.

“We’ve got to be responsible as elected members that we set a budget that’s fair and consistent in what we’re trying to do, and I think the budget in my view is fair it is balanced, and it protects public services when I think public services need our support more than ever, post pandemic, and I think the budget does that.”

The formal report before the Executive Board emerged last night and notes, “There are no service cuts proposed as part of the 2022/23 budget, though a level of service efficiencies of £300k have been included and are deemed deliverable. ”