Your Flintshire council tax bill is going up in April, but not as much as last year
Council tax rates in Flintshire will rise from April – but significantly less than they have risen for the last three years.
Using Band D properties as a benchmark, Flintshire households will pay an additional 5.77% in total.
Band D council tax charges will rise from £2,246.47 last year to £2,376.17 from this April.
The last time Flintshire increased council tax by less than 8% was in 2023/24, when it agreed a rate of 4.95%.
Councillors have also backed a move to protect education in 26/27 – increasing the schools budget by 3.84%.
Members rejected a last-minute bid from Flintshire People’s Voice to propose an alternative budget that had not been through scrutiny – but accepted an amendment by Liberal Democrat Cllr Andrew Parkhurst to reduce the amount put into council reserves by £142,000.
That money will instead be used to repair an additional 1,021 potholes – with a focus on rural roads – and to provide improved signage for toilets that are open to the public in leisure centres and libraries.
The final council tax figure is made up of a 4.98% increase for Flintshire County Council to fund services, a 0.48% increase in the amount paid for North Wales Fire and Rescue Service, a 7.01% increase in the North Wales Police and Crime Commissioner’s charges and a 7.61% uplift in the funding provided to town and community councils.
In total Flintshire – which collects 309 different council tax fees from residents across nine property bands and 34 town and community councils – will collect £158,544,982.
Of that £127.7m will be spent directly on Flintshire Council services, added to the authority’s £282.4m Welsh Local Government Settlement.
Flintshire struggled last year with a social care overspend of £7m – so this year has increased the service’s budget by almost £14.6m to support vulnerable residents .
The council has been forced to identify further savings in the face of a projected £14.9m deficit, finding just under £2.2m of savings from out of county placements, revised pay modelling, teachers pay awards and a lower than expected fire service levy.
The remaining gap has been filled in part by the Welsh Government Settlement uplift which was worth £5.2m, portfolio efficiencies and revised school pupil numbers which have saved over £3m between them and the transformation programme, which proposes to cut £2m of inefficient council processes in the next 12 months.
“This budget has got to do two things – keep the essential services running and keep the council financially stable.,” said Cllr Paul Johnson, Cabinet member for Finance and Social Value.
“That’s what we’ve done. We’ve put money where we need it. We’ve made savings and changed how we work, while still funding care and essential services.
“This budget focuses around care and support for children and vulnerable people. We’ve made savings through the transformation programme. We’ve protected our overall service. This is a delivery budget designed to keep the council stable and our services running.”
By Alec Doyle – Local Democracy Reporter
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