The days may be short and the nights long but that doesn’t excuse the lack of progress that Powys County Council leadership are making in dealing with the ever-increasing challenges, writes cllr Aled Davies.

Welsh Government will only announce the funding settlement for Powys less than a week before Christmas. 

Even though the Welsh Government budget is the highest it has ever been, Powys will almost certainly continue to be one of the poorest funded councils in Wales, probably it will be in the usual 20th position out of the 22 Local Authorities.

That will not change until there is a change of Government in Cardiff.

The challenges Powys face are significant. Schools simply don’t have budget to deliver the quality of education required; without ‘transformation’ they are being asked to do the impossible.

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The conditions of our rural roads are deteriorating fast.

Daily, residents raise concerns about the road conditions and rightly so. The roads are dangerous in some areas and the response from the Highways team is that they will deal with them when ‘resources allow’.

I can feel the Highways team’s frustration, I know they want to respond faster and better, but they are under resourced and lack manpower to deal with the huge backlog of highway issues.

There was good news last month, Powys will receive £17.7 million form the UK Government’s Levelling Up Fund, a big part of which will be spent on some roads.

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This is the latest in a succession of direct support from UK Government to Powys, and we mustn’t underestimate the significant role that our MPs Fay Jones and Craig Williams play in accessing this funding. 

Additional grant funding is always great to receive but it shouldn’t be used to off-set poor funding settlements from Welsh Government that’s needed to deliver core services. Local Government funding formula needs to change in order for Powys to receive a fair share of resources.

Funds for the public sector will be tight over the next few years, whoever is in power, so it necessitates the Leadership in Powys Council to step up to the plate.

The Lib Dem/Labour leadership is clearly failing to do so, they lack vision and clarity and have an inability to take the difficult decisions required.

Apologies for my slightly down beat comments but I do hope all County Times readers will be able to take a few hours off over Christmas. Nadolig Llawen i chi gyd.