The Leader of Neath Port Talbot Council Cllr Steve Hunt, and fellow Cabinet Members, will once again be holding a series of face-to-face meetings with residents to discuss ongoing financial pressures.
They have announced dates and venues for a series of roadshows to discuss the current turbulent economic conditions and what these could mean for our residents and for vital council services.
They will be setting up stands at popular public venues in the county borough in November where local people can discuss and offer suggestions on the best way to approach the council’s upcoming 2025/26 budget.
The dates, times and venues of the meetings which start with a 15-minute presentation followed by a 45 minute Q&A session are:
• Monday 11 Nov 2024, 4pm – 5pm, The Gwyn Hall, Neath.
• Tuesday 12 Nov 2024, 6pm – 7pm, Pontardawe Library.
• Monday 18 Nov 2024, 12.30pm – 1.30pm, the Aberafan Shopping Centre
• Tuesday 19 Nov, 6pm – 7pm, An online meeting using Microsoft Teams – details of how to join will be released soon.
Earlier this year, Cllr Hunt wrote a letter to the UK and Welsh Governments expressing serious concern over funding for local councils following a Welsh Government suggestion that local authorities in Wales should plan for NO increases in Revenue Support Grant (the money given by Welsh Government to councils to run services) in the next financial year.
The letter, which also appealed for ‘fair funding’, was sent in response to a cross-party motion taken at a full meeting of Neath Port Talbot Council on Friday, July 26th, 2024, at which councillors felt it was necessary to “to sound the alarm bell” over funding levels as councils across Wales and the UK continued to struggle financially.
Cllr Simon Knoyle, Neath Port Talbot Council’s Cabinet Member for Finance, Performance and Social Justice, said: “The severe financial pressures this council faces in continuing to provide its services for local people are set against the backdrop of the thousands of job losses at the Port Talbot steelworks.
“Our plans to produce a balanced budget for 2025/26 will be seriously affected by severe pressures caused by an increase in people seeking help from social services, housing, education, and spiralling costs for goods, food, and energy prices.
“We are looking for input into how we should approach the difficult budget choices we are facing from our residents, from unions and from other partners with these public budget consultation meetings being our residents’ chance to have their say to us face-to-face. We are looking forward to meeting them.”
The November 2024 budget public meetings follow similar face-to-face budget talks with residents in 2022 and 2023.
