BUDGET cuts for Gwynedd Council services might not be quite as bad as first feared.

At a Tywyn Town Council meeting last week, Gwynedd councillor Anne Lloyd-Jones ann­ounced that the county council’s cuts for the coming financial year will be £5m, not £7m as previously projected in the Gwynedd Challenge consultation.

Quentin Deakin, chair of SOS Gwynedd, a group dedicated to protecting front-line council services, was delighted by the news.

“This is clearly to be welcomed and the presumption must be that it is due to a more generous settlement from the Welsh Government than anticipated,” he said after the meeting.

“Preserving and enhancing the long-term via­bility of front-line services must be the council’s priority, as it is the public’s.”

Mr Deakin went on to make some suggestions on how the £5m deficit to the budget could be made up.

“We expect all of the projected cuts to back-room services to go ahead without amendment, that is, those agreed by councillors last year in addition to any ‘efficiency savings’ already budgeted,” he said.

“We also suggest that some of the £4.35 million of reserves – a figure supplied by Dilwyn Williams, chief executive of Gwynedd – be used, not only to further offset some of the most onerous and damaging of the front-line cuts, but also to be invested in infrastructure that will increase the council’s revenue stream in the longer term.

“For example, simple high tech toll facilities on Barmouth bridge or pay toilets in the most used venues in the county could all attract extra income.

“Finally, we urge setting a poll tax rate of five per cent that would further offset the scale of front-line cuts necessitated to the tune of £0.8m.

“All these are clearly decisions for our local politicians, we merely posit them here as possible routes to achieve the key objective of maintaining and enhancing front-line services.”

In light of SOS Gwynedd’s suggestions, Dilwyn Williams, Gwynedd Council chief executive, said: “Whilst work to finalise the council’s budgetary requirement continues, our latest budgetary analysis suggests that the fact that the reduction in Gwynedd Council’s grant for 2016/17 will be £2.6m rather than the anticipated £3.5m means that we can also adjust the projected reduction for 2017/18.

“Taken together, this means that Gwynedd Council may not need to implement the whole £7m service cuts we were previously anticipating would be required for the next two years.

“We now believe that we may be able to achieve a balanced budget for the two-year period by imple­menting £5m of service cuts instead.

“Preserving front-line services has always been the council’s aim, and the revised projections will not affect our intention to maximise savings from efficiency savings whatever the source.

“However, using balances to avoid making necessary cuts would fly in the face of prudent financial management as it merely delays the difficult decisions which will have to be made and endanger the council’s financial stability.”

He added: “The question of council tax increases will be taken by the full Council at its meeting in March, having taken all relevant factors into account­.”