County’s council tax set to rise by 4.75% following calls for swimming pools funding

Bruce Sinclair, Local democracy reporter

The average council taxpayer in a Welsh county is expected to see the county element of their overall bill rise by nearly £90 this year after senior councillors backed a call for extra funding for swimming pools.

At the 10 February meeting of Ceredigion County Council’s Cabinet, members were asked to make their final recommendation to full council, meeting on March 2, for the annual budget, with two options for the council tax rate; an increase of 4.69 per cent equating to a Band D average property annual increase of £88.48, and a 4.75 per cent rate, an increase of £89.61.

Last year, for the 2025-’26 budget, Ceredigion saw a council tax rise of 9.3 per cent.

The overall council tax bill is made up of the county council element, the largest part; the Dyfed-Powys Police precept; and individual town or community council elements.

While council tax makes up a proportion of the council’s annual revenue, a crucial area of funding is the Aggregate External Finance (AEF) rate from Welsh Government.

Ceredigion was to receive a 2.3 per cent increase on its settlement this year, but a later Welsh Government and Plaid Cymru agreement add secured Ceredigion additional funding.

Back in November, before the increased settlement was announced, Ceredigion Leader Cllr Bryan Davies said that early estimates indicated that an 8.9 per cent increase in council tax would be necessary, later remodelled 6.9 per cent, before members of the January meeting of Cabinet hearing it could drop to 4.75 per cent.

Following that, members of a scrutiny committee heard earlier this month that could drop even lower to 4.7 per cent, following financial support towards the Mid and West Wales Fire Service Levy.

Council scrutiny committee have been considering the budget ahead of the final Cabinet recommendation, with a minor amendment proposed by the Healthier Communities Overview & Scrutiny committee meeting.

That proposal, to allocate £30,000 of new funding per annum to Calon Tysul, the trust operating the swimming pool in Llandysul, and £11,000 of additional funding a year to the Aberaeron & District Swimming Pool Trust, taking that trust’s basic funding to £30,000 per annum, a total of £41,000 extra for the overall budget, equivalent to a council tax increase of approximately 0.07 per cent, lower than the value of the additional funding for the fire levy recently received.

A report for members said: “This proposal does contribute towards the council’s Corporate Wellbeing Objective of ‘Creating Caring and Healthy Communities’ and the National Wellbeing goal of ‘A healthier Wales’. In addition, basic due diligence has been undertaken based on the latest available financial accounts available and any award of funding would be subject to confirmation that each Trust intends to continue trading for the foreseeable future.”

The second option, the 4.75 rate, was moved by Councillor Catrin M S Davies, with Elizabeth Evans, Aberaeron councillor, expressing her thanks for the existing support.

Cllr Evans said there had been “brutal cuts” in previous budgets, but stressed the importance of investment in services, saying: “When we invest in our services as we did last year the benefits to residents are immediate.”

The option, backed by Cabinet ahead of the full council decision, sees the council’s annual budget for 2026-’27 at £221.499m.