Council’s Covid cash concerns ease

It appears that the Covid-19 crisis won’t be making such a big impact on Powys County Council funds after all.

County Hall number crunchers had predicted that the pandemic would mean a £6.4million reduction in income for the regional authority due to a reduction in car parking, licences, planning fees as well as rents, bus revenue and leisure centres payments.

But the picture doesn’t appear to be as gloomy as first feared, according to Head of Finance, Jane Thomas, who told members of the Finance Panel at their e-meeting on Thursday that the position by the end of June is going to be better than predicted.

“In terms of our initial projection we haven’t seen as much loss as was anticipated,” she said. “We are updating that now for what’s actually happened and that will inform the decision making on that pot of money.”

The council, which also took a huge financial hit from the February and March storms, hopes to claw a lot of the lost money back through the Welsh Government.

By Elgan Hearn, Local Democracy Reporter