Households fail to receive council tax bills by post

Ted Peskett, local democracy reporter

Almost 2,000 households didn’t receive their council tax bill in the post this year because they were not received by Royal Mail in time.

Communications company Mediascene Ltd confirmed 1,700 council tax bills did not reach residents after a production issue resulted in bills being handed over later than planned.

The households affected were predominantly homes in Sully and Cosmeston according to Vale of Glamorgan Council.

Mediascene said the issue has now been rectified and apologised to those affected.

A Vale of Glamorgan Council spokesman said: “Following a number of residents raising concerns last week that they had not yet received their bill this year we immediately investigated the issue and instructed our supplier to do the same.”

March

Vale of Glamorgan Council uses Mediascene to issue more than 60,000 council tax bills at the end of March.

The council spokesman added: “It has been identified that around 1,700 letters were not passed by our supplier to Royal Mail for delivery.

“These are predominantly homes in the Sully and Cosmeston areas.

“These bills are now in the post and we expect them to be delivered in the next week.

“We are writing to all affected residents to explain the delay and to apologise for any inconvenience this has caused.

“We will also now review our billing process to ensure residents are not inconvenienced in this way in the future.”

Council tax was originally proposed to go up by 5.9% this financial year.

However after Vale of Glamorgan Council received its provisional settlement from the Welsh Government it announced in January 2024 that council tax would go up by 6.7%.

A Mediascene spokesman said: “I can confirm there was a production issue which resulted in bills being handed over to Royal Mail for delivery later than planned.

“This affected less than 3% of the total volume of bills processed and has now been rectified.

“Vale of Glamorgan council will be compensated for this issue and we would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused.”