Plaid Cymru supports call for Caerphilly Council to stand alone

Plaid Cymru’s Caerphilly councillors will support Labour’s call to not merge with Torfaen and Blaenau Gwent county borough councils.

The Labour group declared their opposition to the proposed plans, calling for Caerphilly to ‘go it alone’, in response to the Williams Commission report that outlined plans to merge some of Wales 22 councils.

The Welsh Government has asked for responses to the report and Plaids opposition means Caerphilly County Borough Council will almost certainly be at odds with the government who support mergers.

However, it is understood Torfaen and Blaenau Gwent do not wish to merge with Caerphilly, instead preferring to align with Monmouthshire County Council.

Cllr Colin Mann, leader of the Plaid Cymru group, said: “The Welsh Government’s interpretation of the Williams Commission report would lead to huge costs and disruption. We face plenty of pain for little gain. Caerphilly is already the biggest authority in Gwent with a population of almost 180,000 and is quite capable of running services on its own.

“Council tax-payers in Caerphilly would also face big increases in their bills. The Band D bill in Blaenau Gwent is 43% higher – over £400 per year – so Caerphilly residents could face huge rises in council tax as a result of a re-organisation and this may well be combined with inferior services . The former Plaid Cymru administration froze council tax for two years while other authorities increased them so there is clearly a different philosophy between the three councils.

“The last re-organisation in 1996 caused massive disruption and costs. The terms and conditions of council employees in Caerphilly CBC were not finally equalised until nearly 15 years later. Staff in some councils are still waiting. Another major issue would be the fact that Caerphilly is the only one of the three authorities to run its own housing stock.

“Caerphilly has got a good record of delivering services to residents, so why change something which is not broken?

“Caerphilly council already co-operates with neighbouring authorities in areas such as Project Gwyrdd to deal with municipal waste, the education advisory service and emergency out-of-hours social care is also shared.

“There is also the issue of the democratic deficit. People in communities are going to be less well served if there are fewer councillors to serve larger areas. Given the huge cuts in funding that local authorities are facing we need to concentrate scarce funding on services not waste it on re-organisation. This is certainly the wrong time to consider a radical shake-up of local government and with no proven advantage.

“The Labour Welsh Government has cherry-picked parts of the Williams report as an excuse to attempt local government re-organisation. Williams was supposed to be about the delivery of the whole of public services not one part of it.”