Plaid Cymru on Carmarthenshire County Council has blamed inadequate Welsh Government funding and the Labour Chancellor’s devastating employers National Insurance hike for blowing a multi-million pound hole in the council’s budget for 2025/26 – forcing the authority to propose a Council Tax rise of 9.75%.
“In my experience this year is even worse than all those years of Tory austerity,” said Cllr Alun Lenny, Cabinet Member for Resources. “Due to inflation, pay settlements and growing demand, we needed an extra £55m to fund essential services like Social Care and Education, but received a total of just £25m in annual grants from the Labour Welsh Government. We’ve had to fill the gap with efficiencies and a far higher Council Tax rise than any of us would like.
“Residents might be surprised to learn that only 16% of our income comes from the Council Tax, with every 1% equating to £1m. We originally anticipated raising it by 4-5%, but Rachel Reeves’ National Insurance changes alone will leave us about £4m out of pocket. The Labour Chancellor’s action has also hit local businesses hard right across our county, with lower paid workers in retail and hospitality in particular worried about their jobs.
“I’m sure that motorists concerned about potholes will be outraged to learn that councils in England are getting massive extra funding from the £4.7 billion Local Transport Fund. Just over the border, Herefordshire – a county with almost exactly the same size population and highways network as Carmarthenshire – is getting an extra £102m over the next seven years. That scale of spending on roads is something we can only dream about, and shows that we in Wales are the poor relatives when it comes to UK Government funding.
“It’s scandalous that the Labour Government in Westminster is following the Tory party line by refusing to give Wales the billions of pounds Plaid insists we’re owed as consequential funding from the HS2 railway development in England. We estimate that our share in Carmarthenshire should be £250m. That would solve our budget problems overnight.
“Despite the grossly inadequate funding and the huge financial pressures, we’re still investing millions of pounds more in education, in housing, and in adult and childrens’ services. We’ve also responded to the public consultation by scrapping the proposal to close public toilets unless they were asset transferred. Car parking charges will only be raised in line with inflation, and we’ll be investing more in highways, gully cleaning and flood prevention.”
As the Welsh Government puts the final touches to its annual budget, Plaid Cymru will be lobbying hard for fairer funding right up until the last minute.
If you stopped opening hubs and stupid cycle paths, I think plaid are a joke they could not run a piss up in a brewery
Ken Ward I like cycle paths
Alan James good for you
Alan James I like to see a doctor
Lindsey Weeks they don’t have any on cycle paths, or Doctors surgeries
Lindsey Weeks why have you a medical condition
They just put 3 speed humps in Llanelli in a 20mph area. I’m going to put in a freedom of information form to find out how much these cost. Wales is failing in hospitals and education yet wasting our money. Council taxes massively rising.
We need Reform
Lindsey Weeks Reform who will privatise the NHS.
Jonathan Williams and the council hopefully
Lindsey Weeks you want them to privatise the NHS?
Jonathan Williams Welsh Labour said we got to many beds in the hospitals anyway 🤣🤣🤣 bunch of clowns running the circus
Lindsey Weeks so do you want them to privatise the NHS?
Jonathan Williams yes stop paying NI and pay insurance so we can have operations within a month.
Obliviously support the disabled who can’t work.
If you can afford a pint and a fag you can support yourself.
Take care mate
Lindsey Weeks do you know how much operations cost?
Jonathan Williams not sure mate it’s a black hole we pumping billions into it.
Lindsey Weeks you wouldn’t be able to afford it. None of us would and then there would be bankruptcy due to medical bills.
Lindsey Weeks we certainly haven’t too many beds in our hospitals as if that were true there wouldn’t be patients on trolleys and chairs clogging corridors.
We need more Drs.and nurses for our hospitals not less beds.
Lindsey Weeks Reform will take us back in time.
Emyr Evans we going backwards with Labour. Killing our pensioners and giving money to Pakistan and other country’s. Let’s hope there’s not a war, the kids wouldn’t know what to do.
We live in an unstable world.
Knife crime up and we pandering about the place.
Give the police guns like all European country’s .
This country is so weak
Emyr Evans and please don’t take this the wrong way. It’s nice to express our views. I was brought up on a council estate and my parents worked hard to put a roof over our head and food in the cupboard.
Take care my friend
Emyr Evans good because where certainly not moving forward I anything where going back already
Lindsey Weeks I’m the same regarding council estate, also doing the same myself for my family.
Emyr Evans In wales we only ever had one party so can’t compare. Take care my friend
Lindsey the speed bumps didn’t cost the County a penny and we’re implemented because 200 residents signed a petition to slow down traffic in the area,
Plaid are in charge at the County Council not Labour…. and Plaid just rely on handouts.
Deryk Cundy hi hope your keeping well. You knocked my door and asked about calming road measures.
But this is wasting our money, I travel at 30mph and slow down for these then regain power.
I hate a blame game, I believe these cost hundreds of thousands of pounds. As a councillors do you have a cost on these three speed bumps.
Respect
Lindsey I am well thanks as I hope you are.
People like yourself probably obey the law and don’t speed but even up to the week before the vertical measures were put in I was getting complaints about speeding…. so the 20mph because it is voluntary does not work.
There were a number of accidents….
the idea was to try and make the areas safe.
The traffic calming scheme was paid effectively by Persimmon out of funds they had to pay as part of the planning agreement and could only be used for traffic calming measures in the area near the estate.
It seemed best use of this money for local residents,….for safety reasons
Deryk Cundy thanks it’s nice to know Persimmon paid for it and not the tax payer.
Hope it saves lives and reducers emissions.
Lindsey….. me too🤞
They should stop spending money on pie in the sky ideas and concentrating on things that people need
Westminster isn’t working for Cymru, always getting shafted with billions of pounds we are owed.
Plaid Cymru are the only party that will stand up for Cymru
James Stevens behave will you . Plaids side of the labour bed is still warm.. they are only now pushing as the see labours demise.. to little to late from plaid cymru for me. Plus their policies still cozy up to the wef and net zero
James Stevens plus plaid cymru hold the majority in CCC 🤷🤷 so it’s no exactly just labour wasting all that money is it
Pen Cwm Gwendraeth Meats where does the money come from in the first place?
Comes down from Westminster to Cardiff, then from there distributed amongst local authorities.
Plaid did work with Labour for some time in the Senedd, but they got through free school meals, yes they stood with Labour over the 20mph but how many lives have been saved & money, they also voted against plans to stop farmers having 20% of land taken away.
Carmarthenshire council do nothing for Llanelli we should have a refund on our poll tax not pay more
And assembly get 6% pay rises
David Daniels not just the assembly. Carms councillors too. Shocking!
Sarcasm
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Nothing to do with the plaid council wasting money left right and center on stupid projects . How much money have they wasted just on burryport harbour and it’s still a 💩hole that no one can use . Plaid are not the party of Wales they are no different to anyone else. All in it for themselves .
Trev T Carpenter asked my local county councillor that question on how much money they wasted on Burry Port harbour trying to solve the problem.. over a year later still waiting for a answer. Strange even the local paper has no interest and not asked how much money they wasted moving sand from the harbour and the entrance to the harbour over the last 25 years.
Will that pay for our town centre disco light that still have not been switched on
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Martin Hutchinson What a waste of money, the next thing is they will be saying they don’t have enough money and will be putting up POL Tax, The services we get in Llanelli is rubbish we need a refund
Alan Myhill it going up
Worst council known , what do we actually pay for ?
There changing ways or recycling and we have do 95% of it our selves now so that should bring council tax down yet whilst this is happening there saving even more money as they don’t as many employees, saving and making millions on our backs
NHS just aswell privatise it anyway , seems like it’s being deliberately run down to drive it to being privatised
There removing bins from towns and villages
Morfa in llanelli has a camera that fines you if you drive through that street between school times , why only There? Hot spot for fines ? Why not throughout the county ?
Most 30mph are coming to an end and every village iv been today has traps across the road ready them to earn good coin before 30s return .
Sort it out ffs
The senedd do they really need 60 extra staff ? Who pays for them ? Aren’t there enough idiots in there .
Reform please 🙏 and protests needed outside ccc
Sorry, but this is probably the worst piece of pseudo journalism I’ve seen for a long time 🤣
Where’s the balance? The only source is a Plaid councillor! 🤣
Not surprised there’s no name attached to this article! Emyr Evans? 🤣
What a lovely balanced unbiased article 🤣 Nothing like impartial local media eh. For the record I don’t like Labour but ffs how amateurish is this.
This article doesn’t have a name because it’s an unedited press release that all parties have access to.
It’s been the policy since around 2012 not to edit press releases and pass them off as articles by the organisation.
All parties are given the right to reply and some do but some don’t.
It Scandalous the way Plaid Cymru administration are running the Education department with a £10million overspend and asking the ratepayers to pay an extra 3.1% on their council taxes because of their miss management of schools over the last ten years.
It is also scandalous that Plaid Cymru in Cardiff have voted against a extra £1.5 billion just to play politics because we have an election next year. 🙄
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