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Powys County Times
08-07-2025
- Business
- Powys County Times
Stopping Powys farm sales could hammer council coffers
Finance chiefs have urged Powys councillors to oppose a motion calling for a halt to sales of council-owned farms. A cross-party motion going before the full council this Thursday (July 10) will call for a moratorium on the sale of council-owned farms. Put forward by Powys Independents Cllr Gareth E Jones (Llanelwedd) and seconded by Plaid Cymru group leader, Cllr Elwyn Vaughan (Glantwymyn), it will ask the council to: 'Recognise the valuable contribution that council-owned farms play in supporting food production and enabling young entrants into farming. 'Regrets that selling council-owned farms risks reducing Powys food security and traditional farming practices. 'Calls on the council to impose a moratorium on the sale of its council-owned farms, until a sound County Farms management policy is agreed by Council. 'Scrap the arbitrary £10 million a year asset sales target.' But the financial assessment explains that the capital receipts target is a central plank of the budget which was agreed by councillors back in February. The assessment said: 'Every £1 million reduction of capital receipts from the sale of council owned farms, would increase the borrowing requirement in order to fund the capital programme.' This would mean an extra £50,000 to £60,000 each year on every £1 million the council needs to borrow to fund its building and maintenance projects. The assessment continued: 'If £10 million of capital receipts is not available to fund capital investment and this resulted in additional borrowing, this would result in an additional annual revenue cost. 'If approved, this motion will prevent the release of up to £10 million of capital receipts while also not reducing the council's liability for these properties, their backlog maintenance and other investment requirements. 'It should be noted that this motion goes against the council's Corporate Asset Policy (CAP) which states: to assist the council in delivering the priorities of the Corporate Improvement Plan, the council is committed to prompt and ongoing rationalisation of its buildings and land. "The financial challenge facing the council in the next few years cannot be underestimated and to change policy independently now without considering the wider implications on the council's Medium Term Financial Strategy is not advised.' The future of the estate has long been a bone of contention due to plans to sell parts of it off in a bid to raise £10 million a year in 'capital receipts' which could be used by the council to fund its building projects such as new schools. In April council leader, Cllr Jake Berriman (Liberal Democrat) apologised in his previous cabinet role to fellow senior councillors at a cabinet meeting after it was revealed that the council had only managed to make just over £1 million of the £10 million target as the 2024/2025 budget stood at the end of February.
BBC News
07-07-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Powys bus vote sees £1.3m found for key rural routes
Powys County Council will provide an extra £1.3m for key bus services, but the last-minute nature of the decision has been money will help connect five hub towns in Wales' biggest local authority area to larger cities, as well as providing longer hours and weekend extraordinary meeting of council members on Friday agreed to find £1.349m from internal budgets, as the new service needs an extra £2.354m on top of the basic £5.442m set was the last possible date to sign paperwork that would allow the seven-year contract to come into force on 1 September and the timing angered opposition councillors. The services are seen as crucial to help residents in the largely rural area access health, education and other services that are not available in the county."It's highly unfortunate and some would say unprofessional that we're having such an important discussion on multimillion-pound contracts at the very last minute," said Plaid Cymru group leader Elwyn Charlton, Liberal Democrat cabinet member for highways, transport and recycling, responded: "I think it's been one of the most professional processes I have seen in this authority."It's been through the full democratic process, it's been through scrutiny, cabinet and has been out to engagement."Independents councillor Gareth E Jones believed that funding could result in a 2% increase in council Democrat cabinet member for legal and regulatory services Richard Church said: "We should be shouting from the rooftops the fact that we are bringing back Sunday and evening services."The move was backed by the Labour-Liberal Democrat cabinet last month, and in Friday's vote by 25 councillors, with 21 against, and one abstaining. This article was written by a trusted journalist and then edited for length and style with the help of AI, before being checked again by a BBC Journalist. It's part of a pilot.
Powys County Times
17-06-2025
- Politics
- Powys County Times
Powys' 'best students leaving county to continue education'
THE brightest pupils are leaving Powys to continue their post-16 education outside the county an education chief has confirmed. At a meeting of Powys County Council's Learning and Skills scrutiny committee on Monday, June 16, councillors and lay members received a report on school standards and improvement. The report also included data on GCSE and A-Level exam results which show that Powys is performing well below the standards of the past. When it comes to A-Level results, Powys come in below the all Wales average in five of six results categories. On the A*(star) to E grade table Powys come in joint 19th place with only 65 per cent getting all three grades. This is well below neighbours Ceredigion Council who come top of the class with 77 per cent. Cllr Gareth E Jones (Powys Independents) said: 'Have you done any work around the significant number of learners that are going out of county for their post-16 education to Hereford, Shrewsbury and Merthyr. 'What impact do those learners going out of county have on the overall performance of post-16? 'My guess would be that better quality learners go out of county and if they had stayed our overall performance may be better.' Head of school improvement and learning Anwen Orrells said: 'You would be correct in assuming that the more able are the ones that are leaving.' She said that the council knew how many post-16 pupils were out of county but didn't have details of their results from last summer. Cllr James Gibson-Watt (Liberal Democrat) stood down as council leader last month but has stayed on in the cabinet to start off the post-16 education review. The preferred option already backed by council officers could see all English medium school sixth forms vanish – in favour of two specialist sixth form schools to be based in Brecon and Newtown. While Welsh medium secondary schools would also join forces and have one separate sixth form operation across potentially three campuses. This preferred option has already come in for heavy criticism with many believing it would accelerate the exodus of pupils our of Powys. Cllr Gibson-Watt said: 'If ever we needed evidence of some radical reform in post-16 this paper sums it up. 'If you look at the details of the decline in performance it is quite shocking. 'We have to create a system that allows them to stay in county. 'We're in a situation where only 65 per cent are getting A* to E grades. 'Let's be frank, an A-level grade below C is not much use to anyone in life, particularly to get into higher education. 'I remember Powys was consistently in the top three counties for GCSE and A-level outcomes and here we are languishing in the bottom quartile.' Between 2010 and 2019 sixth forms across the saw a 33 per cent decline. falling from 1,445 to 978 in 2019. This means that funding from the Welsh Government based on pupils numbers has dropped from £6.5 million to £4.4 million
Powys County Times
14-06-2025
- Business
- Powys County Times
Powys County Council's budget black hole value queried
HOW big a funding gap Powys County Council is expected to fill with cuts and savings over the next four to fove years varies by over £20 million – a councllor has pointed out. Calls were made to clarify the figures that the council is using to explain their predicted financial black hole during a joint meeting of all of the council's scrutiny committee's on Wednesday, June 11. At the meeting, councillors looked at the council's draft Corporate and Equalities Strategic Plan which has been updated from the version that was agreed earlier this year. The plan sets out the council's well-being objectives, and what action they need to take to deliver them up the next local election in 2027. All the departmental strategies, action and business plans are linked by a 'golden thread' into this document which encompasses them all. This plan is supposed to keep track of how the council is performing against the three objectives of the Liberal Democrat/Labour cabinet's Stronger Fairer, Greener agenda. Cllr Gareth E Jones (Powys Independents) highlighted the problem and said: 'If you go to the leader and deputy leader's introduction (to the document) there's a statement there that the funding gap is £60 million but on the MTFS (Medium Term Financial Strategy) the funding gap on those assumptions is shown as £39.1 million. 'I think they two figures need to be the same for consistency.' Director of corporate services and section 151 officer, Jane Thomas replied: 'We can and will amend that to the latest figure, it should reflect what was approved in council back in February. 'We will see the gap change quite often now as we go through the years and we develop our five year plans.' Making sure that the figure changes forms one of the recommendations made by councillors at the meeting – which will be added to the report when it goes before cabinet at a later date. Another recommendation by councillors is that members of the Liberal Democrat/Labour cabinet should attend the joint scrutiny meeting to explain and if needed defend the council's performance. Cllr Jones said: 'It was very disappointing about the number of cabinet members that were present today, we should have a recommendation at future meetings that they have more presence. 'This is the council's performance document ,officers develop the plan but cabinet member sign it off.' Learning and skills committee chairman who chaired the joint-scrutiny meeting, Cllr Gwynfor Thomas (Conservative) said: 'I'm happy to do that as they (cabinet members) are the line holders and are responsible for the different measures and things.'
