Conwy locals voice strong anger over the council’s proposed 6.5 % council tax rise for 2026 and 2027, blaming bad management, wasted projects like Mochdre Park & Coed Pella, while services decline.
People in Conwy are really upset about the council’s plan to put up council tax by 6.5 % for the years 2026 and 2027.
The cabinet at Conwy County Council has already given the go ahead to this rise, which breaks down to about 6.09 % for the council’s own services and another 0.41 % that goes to the North Wales Fire and Rescue Authority.
This is all part of the draft budget the council is putting together right now, and it will go in front of the full council next week to make the final call.
The council says they are in a really tough spot financially and they point the finger at the UK government and the Welsh government for not giving them enough money.
They did get an extra almost 11 million pounds from the Welsh Government this time around, but even with that the council still had a gap of more than 5 million pounds to fill after everything else.
Hence, to help balance the books, they have found about 2.2 million pounds in savings from services, though they made sure school budgets stay the same with no cuts there.
Now, residents are not happy at all and many of them have been sharing their thoughts online, especially readers of North Wales Live.
Many people feel worn out from having to pay more year after year while noticing that services seem to get less and less. They look back at some of the things the council has spent money on and think a lot of it was wasted.
For instance, one person brought up the Mochdre Commercial Park which the council has to pay around 240000 pounds a year for even though the floor is not strong enough for their own heavy vehicles to use it properly.
Another reader mentioned the fancy new Coed Pella headquarters building and called it a waste along with the Mochdre storage shed problem and other projects that didn’t turn out well.
Someone else asked why the council keeps spending on things like subsidising Parc Eirias and Venue Cymru when other councils have stopped paying for those kinds of extras and focused on the basics instead.
A few people compared Conwy to nearby places like Flintshire where they talked about freezing the tax but labour councillors voted against it.
Others suggested big changes such as merging Conwy with Gwynedd and Anglesey into one bigger authority or doing a full audit of how the council spends money after so many years of rises and cuts to services.
One comment straight up said the increases come down to bad management pure and simple.
Whereas, someone else pointed out that the council could save by limiting pay rises for staff to no more than 3 %, cutting pension contributions, and stopping new projects so they can just keep up with maintaining roads buildings, and everything else that already exists.
They also thought more council wardens should go out giving big fines for things like parking on pavements dropping litter or not picking up after dogs.
On Facebook one person joked about renting out unused space in the headquarters which they called a carbuncle.
A number of residents are calling for everyone to stand together against what they see as the council making people pay for their own mistakes both past and future.
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