Councillors hit out at proposal to raise council tax by 7.9%

A 7.9% INCREASE in council tax cannot be justified to the public, councillors on Caerphilly council have said.

Labour, Plaid Cymru, and Independent councillors have all criticised the council’s draft budget for 2023-24, including cuts to community centres, increasing sports fees, and the scrapping of the community empowerment fund (CEF).

At a joint scrutiny meeting, Cllr Brenda Miles said she couldn’t justify the council tax increase to the public, given the amount of money that is going to be spent on Caerphilly’s new leisure centre.

The new leisure centre is going to cost £33.6m in total – £13.6m of which will be funded by the council while the remaining £20m is from the UK Government’s Levelling-Up Fund.

Council leader Sean Morgan defended the leisure centre project and said: “For £13m reserves we would get a £33m leisure centre.”

Meanwhile, the leader of the opposition, Cllr Lindsay Whittle, accused the council of “playing Monopoly with people’s money”.

He said: “It is staggering that Caerphilly council keeps on building and building reserves for a rainy day. I’ve got a message for them – it’s absolutely chucking it down and people are struggling, really struggling, in this cost-of-living crisis.

“Quite how the Labour group can propose an increase of 7.9% in council tax when everyone is facing much higher food and energy bills – I want to see zero increase in bills for 12 months.”

The council currently has more than £230m in reserves, some of which is ring-fenced for certain departments and projects.

The draft budget for 2023-24 is currently out for consultation until February 8.