I would like to keep the people of Powys updated on developments on who is now controlling Powys County Council. The Powys Independents (a group of Independent Councillors) have decided to form a partnership with the Liberal Democrat group. This new coalition is calling itself the Powys Administration. However, it is widely referred to as the “Powys Lib Dem Alliance” I believe the words Liberal Democrat have not been included in the name in an effort to disguise who they are as they do not want to take responsibility for the decisions they make. Like others, because the name does not accurately describe this alliance, I shall refer to this group as the Powys Lib Dem Alliance.
The Shire Independent group, Labour, and the Welsh Conservative group of which I’m a member, are not represented in this alliance.
The group has meetings in private to decide a position and which way to vote and as they have a majority at the Council’s management board and in the Council Chamber, they can do what they want as they of course have the numbers.
At last weeks meeting of the management board, the Powys Liberal Democrat Alliance brought forward a proposal to recommend to the full council an increase in council tax by 4.25%. I could not support this proposal.
Taking into account that inflation is very low, the proposed increase is substantial in real terms. I just think it will be difficult to justify to the people of Powys when some have lost their jobs or are seeing zero wage increases and at a time when many believe basic services are not being successfully delivered.
My concern is that the Powys Lib Dem Alliance is going to vote this through regardless of other Parties views and comments. I just hope that they are going to be genuinely interested in gaining broad based support after a sensible debate at the full council meeting later this month.
This is an important Blog post, the people of Powys need to now about this. Let’s wait and see what happens.
