Plans to increase council tax in Cardiff and make other changes that could affect life in the city have passed their first hurdle.
Cardiff Council’s cabinet members formally gave their endorsement to the local authority’s budget for 2025-26 at a meeting on Thursday.
A 4.95% council tax rise, job cuts, and an increase in the cost of parking permits and other council services are some of the proposals being put forward to close a £27.7m budget gap the council currently faces.
Job cuts would be done through non-replacement of vacancies and voluntary redundancy.
The budget also shows what could receive extra funding in the city.
As part of the current proposals schools, children’s services, and social care are among the areas that will see the highest levels of spending.
Money is also being set aside for things like tackling inner city fly-tipping, drain clearances, and improving parks.
However opposition councillors raised concerns about what was being put forward with one of them noting that there was no mention of how a council landfill tax dispute and other “blunders” would cost the budget.
Another councillor raised concerns about savings in adult social care over the years and argued that schools should be given more funding than what is currently being proposed.
Cardiff Council announced in September 2024 that it had agreed to pay HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) £16 million over a dispute relating to the amount of money it was charging companies to take soil to its former landfill site at Lamby Way.
The council said at the time that there was no suggestion of any impropriety or illegality over the issue, only a dispute over definitions and categorisations about materials.
The leader of the Conservatives group, Cllr John Lancaster, said at Thursday’s cabinet meeting there was no line in the budget proposals about the landfill tax dispute and asked how much it will cost the council each year.
No specific answer on amounts was given at the meeting but the council did say last year that the amount owed to HMRC would be borrowed and paid in full with the amount borrowed being paid back over a period of time.
Cabinet members approved a recommendation in September 2024 to pursue any outstanding unpaid landfill taxes.
Cardiff Council’s cabinet member for finance, Cllr Chris Weaver, answered Cllr Lancaster on Thursday by saying none of the “blunders”, as the Conservatives group leader referred to them, formed a significant part of the budget.
As part of its 2025-26 spending plans Cardiff Council wants to set aside £22.9 million for schools and £8.8 million for central education services, which provides things like home-to-school transport.
Liberal Democrat councillor Bablin Molik, said the proposed funding for schools was not enough.
At the cabinet meeting, she said: “It is in a bad shape at the moment, the whole schools budget.”
She also noted there was no mention in the budget plan of a potential replacement for the former household waste recycling centre in north Cardiff.
Wedal Road Recycling Centre, near Roath Park, closed in 2018 and community leaders in the city have been calling for a replacement ever since.
Cllr Molik referred to proposed cuts and the absence of expected schemes, like the recycling centre, as “collateral damage to the arena plans” and questioned whether the local authority should be setting aside tens of millions to pay for capital projects like the regeneration of Atlantic Wharf and a new council headquarters.
Cardiff Council has previously said building a new headquarters would cost about half of what it would be to refurbish County Hall.
Cllr Weaver said on Thursday: “This is [the] best value for the council taxpayer.”
In reference to the 15,000-capacity indoor arena proposed for Atlantic Wharf, he added: “The economic impact of that [and] the positive impact for this city is just huge.”
He also echoed what one of his cabinet colleagues said earlier this week on a replacement north Cardiff recycling centre pointing to the existing capacity at Cardiff’s two current recycling centres in Bessemer Close and Lamby Way.
At an environmental scrutiny committee meeting on Tuesday, Cardiff Council’s cabinet member for waste, street scene and environmental services, Cllr Norma Mackie, said a solution was being discussed regularly by the local authority.
She said the council is also looking at a way it can address the recycling centre challenge in north Cardiff by potentially providing an alternative solution like a mobile service.
The council’s budget will be debated and voted on at a Cardiff Council full council meeting next Thursday (6th March).
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