URGENT calls have been made for Porthmadog’s tax office to be saved, after government experts said the savings from closing it had been “overestimated”.

The renewed calls to abandon plans to relocate financial services from Dwyfor to south Wales have come about following the publication of The House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts Report on The HMRC Estate last week.

The report found that the government body had overestimated the savings that centralising financial services would bring and had not properly considered “all the negative costs to the wider economy of its approach and the impact on local employment”. In Porthmadog alone, 20 highly-paid positions could be lost.

Lord Elis-Thomas, AM for Dwyfor Meirionnydd, told the Cambrian News he will be calling on the next UK Government to scrap the planned closure of HMRC offices.

Town council chairman and county councillor for Porthmadog West, Selwyn Griffiths, also spoke passionately about the fight against the plans to relocate services.

“I have campaigned hard against the proposal to close Ty Moelwyn down and ‘emigrate” to Cardiff,” he said.

“We feel strongly that these jobs should be kept in the heartland of the Welsh-speaking area of Wales.

“It is very important to our community that the HMRC looks more closely into this matter and performs a U-turn that sees these vital jobs kept in our locality.

“We have here a very professional workforce that is very highly appreciated by its customers and who are part of our local community.”

Read the full story in today’s Arfon/Dwyfor edition of the Cambrian News