MONMOUTH Town Council’s budget could be stretched next year in an attempt to maintain a level of services that the County Council can no longer afford.

Town councillors were advised of the true impact of the austerity cuts by County Councillor Bob Greenland, whose portfolio is enterprise, leisure, culture within Monmouthshire County Council (MCC), as well as officers Kellie Beirne, Chief Officer for Regeneration and Culture and Roger Hoggins, Head of Operations, at a meeting last Wednesday (7th October).

Festivals and events across the county are not the only victims of a diminishing budget, despite council tax rising by 4.9 per cent.

Monmouth council was told that unless they increase their support for services around town, these services will stop in a desperate bid to stem a gap in the council budget.

The four county towns of Monmouth, Caldicot, Chepstow and Abergavenny are being asked to contribute £500k towards MCC, which will still leave a £1.7 million black hole in council finances following an estimated £5 million cut over previous settlements from the Welsh Government next year.

Cllr Greenland spoke of other internal pressures within MCC, such as social services and the council paying employees the living wage, which means £7 million less than last year to pay for goods and services across the county.

“We cannot maintain with our budgets all local services without help from town and Community Councils; there will have to be cuts to local services unless they make contributions to our budget to save those services,” said Cllr Greenland.

“The cultural services of MCC is one area where we believe we can in the future make some savings by completely redesigning how those services are delivered,” he added.

There are concerns amongst residents that ‘delivered in a different way’ often means cuts to tourism, leisure museums, libraries, events, festivals, outdoor entertainment and youth services, and whether small measures such as shorter opening hours or amalgamation of services will mean cutting jobs.

Kellie Beirne talked of a new way of working. She mentioned leaner services and better management and confirmed the council “cannot afford local events and festivals next year”. She proposed that with a small contribution to sustain local services, there would be more devolution of power.

Savings the council can make include:

• £20,000 - closing the toilet facility adjacent to the old Monnow Bridge. The town council already shoulder the cost of the Agincourt Street toilets at a cost of £18,000.

• £12,000 - saving on the standard of maintenance of Chippenham

• £13,000 - maintenance of the Sports Ground.

• £5,000 - reducing the museum’s opening hours by one day.

• £30,000 - reducing the hours of the newly combined library and One Stop Shop (the Hub) services from 38 hours to 30 hours.

These services could be maintained if the town was to either joint-fund with MCC or take over the provision altogether.

Responding, town councillors thanked the officers for their honesty in the approach. Councillor Graham Pritchard accepted that MCC was between a ‘rock and a hard place’ and clarified that they were being asked for £75k, a third of the town council budget and reminded officers that out of the four towns, Monmouth had the lowest precept in the county and have been very frugal. Monmouth already contributes £25k towards road cleaning and £18k towards toilets.

Cllr Anthea Dewhurst criticised the relocation of the One Stop Shop saying the “operation was clumsy and callous” and had left the town feeling “helpless and hopeless”.

Roger Hoggins said that the move to the Rolls Hall was made because it was the easiest and most cost-effective place to move to, saying that the building was not necessarily the final resting pace for the public face of council services.

When asked about the future of the Market Hall, Cllr Greenland confirmed that all council-owned buildings were being looked at in the fixed asset strategy, which includes Caldicot Castle.