CEREDIGION councillors will tomorrow decide whether to support a five per cent hike to council tax to avoid having to make further service cuts.

Cabinet members have already voted to back the above inflation increase of five per cent but a final decision will have to be made by the full council as the authority looks to set its budget for 2016/17.

If the full council votes to accept a five per cent increase, it would be the third year in a row the council has increased council tax by five per cent.

And it would mean that the authority’s portion of council tax has soared by almost a quarter since the 2011/12 financial year.

There were five per cent rises agreed by county councillors in 2014/15 and 2015/16, with three per cent increases in 2011/12, 2012/13 and 2013/14.

The council’s Cabinet had previously said they hoped to be able to limit the rise in council tax to around three per cent this year after two successive five per cent increases.

But this was abandoned when the authority received the second worst funding settlement from the Welsh Government with a cut of 3.5 per cent. Only Powys received a worse funding settlement.

Since the Cabinet decision, however, the council has been awarded an additional £439,000 from the Welsh Government as part of an extra £2.5m package to help Ceredigion, Powys and Monmouthshire councils to cope with the substantial funding cuts they face.

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