Council tax in Denbighshire will rise by 2.95 per cent after councillors voted against a zero per cent increase.

At a full county council meeting today, councillors debated the budget and how much the council needed to increase council tax to cover its costs for the next financial year.

The chamber heard how Denbighshire was under increased financial pressure due to many factors, including energy inflation, schools’ costs and staff wages.

Whilst Denbighshire expects to receive a 9.2 per cent increase in its annual settlement from Welsh Government, the increase comes with meeting additional responsibilities, such as school wage increases, paying staff the Real Living Wage and COVID hardship funds.

Councillors heard how the council faced a shortfall of £2.623m.

But Cllr Glen Swingler proposed a 0% increase, reminding councillors people were struggling to pay energy bills, which had soared, and advised the council had a large enough budget to move money around.

Cllr Gwyneth Ellis agreed: “We all know that people are going to be stressing about paying their bills, and an increase in council tax is going to increase that stress for people.

“It is going to have an impact on people’s emotional and mental wellbeing, but that’s not being considered at all in this report. I think that’s wrong.”

Cllr Paul Penlington said: “2.95 per cent doesn’t sound much today, but during the lifetime of this council, council tax has increased by 25 per cent. Much of that is just servicing debts from Denbighshire’s mismanagement of contracts like the Queens Market in Rhyl that has gone over budget by tens of millions before a spade has gone in the ground!”

He added: “Is it fair that those debts are passed on to our residents!”

But Conservative councillor Martyn Holland criticised Cllr Glen Swingler’s proposal.

“What we have to deal with is a budget we have been looking at for nearly 12 months,” he said.

“Many of us have sat through all these budget sessions, and I asked the question, why have these members, from Plaid Cymru in this particular case, not queried these figures before, not come with proper proposals to the budget sessions,  leaving this right to the last minute, which just happens to be before the local elections in May?

“I’m extremely disappointed because we’ve gone through these figures. None of us particularly want to see council tax rises, but we’ve had these for the last four or five years, and considerable rises in many cases because our budget has been cut, and if we had cut services, the very people that Glen (Cllr Swingler) is talking about will possibly be people who would suffer.

“I’m sorry. I think we need to move this debate on. As much as I don’t like to see council tax rises, we have to be realistic in these difficult times.”

But only seven councillors voted for the 0% increase, and the 2.95 per cent increase was carried.