POWYS council has passed a more than 4% council tax increase having already agreed to slash its spending by £10m from April.

A meeting of the full council approved the 4.25% increase when it met today at County Hall, Llandrindod Wells.

The increase means a typical band D home will have to pay nearly £45 extra for Powys council services this year as well as any increases from their town or community councils. The police precept, which helps fund Dyfed-Powys Police, has been frozen.

The county council has said its element of the community charge is rising by around 85p a week.

A number of councillors objected to proposed increase, including Llandrindod North member Gary Price who is standing for the Conservatives in May’s Welsh Assembly elections and Llangattock member Jeff Holmes.

The independent councillor said: "I will not vote for the increase. Residents are asking me why are we cutting services and putting up the money they pay. I can’t answer.

"I can, it’s the government’s fault, not the county council’s. We are underfunded while the Westminster government pays £50m everyday into Europe. It should put that money into this country. The government should look after its own people."

Councillor Wynne Jones, the cabinet member for finance member on the independent run authority, said he did not want to get into politics and would remain "neutral".

But he said if the council didn’t pass the 4.25% increase it would have to find further savings and agree them by Thursday to get council tax demands out by the end of this week.

He said: "At the last election the Conservative party came to the electorate and said we believe austerity should continue and the result of the election was they were returned to power, including MPs from this area, with a strong mandate for cuts, in our case handed down by the Welsh Government.

"There is no point saying you don’t like this, that is what people in the majority voted for.

"If you were to defeat this and council tax was 2% lower we would then have to make cuts of another three million quid to balance the budget. The cabinet would ask for the meeting to be deferred and we would come back in one day, and we’d only have one day as we need to get the council tax demands out by the end of this week.

"We would come back with another £3m in cuts, but you wouldn’t like it.

"We don’t want to set a 4.25% increase but to vote against it on the basis of cuts will compound the situation, not improve it."

Cllr Price said: "My grandparents don’t refer to it as austerity, they call it good housekeeping."

Llanwrtyd Wells independent member, Colonel Tim Van Rees, praised the independent administration's budget process, which had been on-going since the summer.

He said: "I found it valuable and I was able to explain to Llanwrtyd Town Council and my community councils why the council tax increase is appropriate."

However Cllr Van Rees warned there would be opposition if a review of library services which the council is now starting proposed closing Llanwrtyd library.

The councillor said it had been shown on at least three previous occasions closing Llanwrtyd and Talgarth libraries would only save "minimal" amounts.

The council tax, including town and community council charges and the police precept, was approved with 40 councillors voting in favour.

12 voted against and three abstained.

To see how much your final council tax demand (including town and community and police precepts) is click the link https://powys.moderngov.co.uk/mgConvert2PDF.aspx?ID=4513