Council set to approve budget with 4% increase in council tax

Ceredigion council set to approve its budget for 2020/21 this week along with a four per cent increase in council tax.

Full council is meeting on Thursday, March 5 with the draft budget – including the best settlement from Welsh Government for many years – is recommended for approval.

The aggregated external finance for Ceredigion is £107,646,000 without grant transfers for teachers pay and pensions.

The overall budget total is £151,233,000 an increase of £7.6million.

Council leader Cllr Ellen ap Gwynn has previously said it was “welcomed with open arms.”

It is recommend that a council tax rate of £1,364.82 for Band D properties be set, not including community or police precepts, representing an increase of four per cent for 2020/21.

Cllr ap Gwynn had said that council tax increases of 3.5 per cent, 4.5 per cent and 5 per cent were modelled “to see where that would leave us as far as the bottom line is concerned.”

Services would all receive an uplift of 2.2 per cent to their budgets along with specific allocations to some areas.