THE announcement that council tax in Newport could increase by 9.5 per cent in April next year has been met with an unsurprisingly appalled reaction.

Earlier this week Newport City Council unveiled its draft budget for the 2023-24 financial year – including a wide range of cuts to services including social care for both adults and children, as well as the reduction of bin collections from every two weeks to every three.

On top of this, the council is proposing to increase council tax by an eye-watering 9.5 per cent. The announcement came after council leader Jane Mudd said last month the authority had “very few choices” in setting out its financial plans.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the plans were not met with an entirely enthusiastic reaction from Argus readers on Facebook and in our website comments section.

Here’s a selection of what people said.

On Facebook, Nicky Richards said: “So in other words they are taking away more and asking for more?”

Judith Davies said: “They are having a laugh. For goodness sake there must be better ways of saving money?”

And Jason Henshall said: “I live on my own and create enough rubbish to fill my bin for two weekly collections, even I would struggle with three weekly, the rats would have a field day in Newport.”

And Chris Lovett had an idea of his own, saying: “All people should just stop paying it, if everyone did it they would soon change their tune!” This idea is not endorsed by the South Wales Argus.

The comments section on our website was equally , with commenter Daddyhurricane writing: “Absolutely disgusting. How about NCC actually focus on safety on our streets by putting street lamps on, redoing road marking so they can be visible at night, sorting out the constantly slow traffic lights as you come off or onto George Street Bridge?”

Meanwhile, NRFC1963 predicted the final increase wouldn’t be as high as 9.5 per cent, saying: “They'll throw the 9.5 per cent figure out there knowing the public won't be happy and rightly so, and then next year it'll come in around six per cent and they'll mention how brilliant they are at managing the coffers.”

And Billyf30 had a suggestion. They said: “Rather than cutting down on child and social care services, maybe they can cut down on the amount of councillors there are.

“People’s bins are full now after two weeks, by changing to three weeks there’s either going to be a lot of bin bags on the floor or more fly tipping.”

A public consultation into the plans is due to be launched next week, with the budget to be finalised in February.