BARMOUTH Town Council is set to raise its precept by a whopping 25 per cent in a bid to protect public services.

At a recent meeting, town councillors unanimously agreed to raise local taxes by more than £10,000 after cuts to the funds allocated to the town council by Gwynedd Council.

The town council’s finance sub-committee had met privately to consider the precept for 2016/17, and the recommendations of the group had been circulated by e-mail to each councillor.

No details of the individual expenditure allocations budget for 2016/17 were made public.

Last year, Barmouth Town Council’s precept was £41,760, and the hike will see the council’s budget rise to £52,200, according to the mayor, Cllr Matthew Harris.

The councillors said it was a difficult decision to make and blamed Gwynedd Council for implementing “far too many cuts”.

Speaking at the meeting, Cllr Trefor Roberts said: “Local authorities should not be allowed to get away with it, leaving town and community councils to pay for services to continue.

“Services generally will be cut by the unitary authorities, in my view far too many cuts.

“The finance sub-committee went through the budget in detail and we, as a town council, will have to increase our budget by 25 per cent, which will bring in an extra £10,440, just to take over some services.”

In response, Cllr Rob Williams asked what the actual effect on local ratepayers would be. Councillors were told that the £10,440 increase would represent an extra cost of 20p to 30p per week per household in Band D, or approximately £1 a month.

During the town council meeting, the council also discussed running a pilot scheme on charging a premium on car parking in the town, with the extra money going towards clearing sand form Barmouth’s promenade.

Cllr Andy Sanderson suggested that the clearance of sand from the main road was the responsibility of the highway authority and that was to continue.

The council agreed that money allocated for sand clearance by Gwynedd Council’s Maritime department should be spent on finding a long-term solution to stop sand blowing onto the town.

Barmouth Town Council has been in discussion for several months on what new functions the town council could undertake. However, those details have not been made public.

Mayor Matthew Harris said: “Barmouth Town Council is concerned about the size of cuts Gwynedd Council will potentially make and the effect this will have on services in the town.

“With this in mind, we feel that we must be pro-active in raising funds now in order to be able to deal with issues that could arise from reductions in services.

“It is our responsibility to make sure that the current levels Barmouth has are not compromised, so we took the hard step to raise funds now so we can deal with any eventuality.

“Whilst we understand that this rise seems a lot in percentage terms, we feel that it is justified in order that we can efficiently protect, manage, and maintain the town over the coming years.”