NEWPORT residents will pay at least £70 more in council tax this year.

The city council's cabinet has announced a revised plan to raise council tax for households as part of the budget for 2022/23.

The council originally proposed a 9.5 per cent hike to council tax, but following a public consultation and a cabinet meeting, this has been reduced to an 8.5 per cent rise.

In everyday terms, this means people in the lowest council tax bands (A, B and C) will pay between £1.39 and £1.85 more every week than they did last year.

That is the equivalent of annual council tax bills rising by £72 for people in band A households, and by £96 for people in band C.

Bands A and C are the most common in Newport.

'Considerable' bill for households

The city council said that "even with this increase, Newport is expected to maintain one of the lowest council tax rates in Wales".

Cabinet members "recognised that this is a considerable bill for Newport households", a council statement reads.

But the cabinet was also "pleased that responses to the consultation acknowledged the council’s position, that increases were unavoidable and that it can enable services to be protected".

The proposed council tax increase will now go before full council on Tuesday, February 28.

'Challenging' budget for Newport council

The council has also announced £5m will be "invested in key services" in the new budget.

"Since the draft budget was announced in December, a number of changes and updates including a positive Welsh Government settlement, reductions in pressures, additional savings and confirmation of other grant funding have meant the Cabinet could allocate an additional £2.5m," the council statement read.

"The decision was also taken to re-purpose some of the council’s reserves, meaning an overall additional investment of £5m in 2023/24."

Council leader Jane Mudd added: "We have promised to be a listening council and I was pleased with the level of response this year.

"It has been one of the most challenging budgets we’ve had to set in recent years, and it was vitally important that everyone had their opportunity to contribute.

"Every response was reviewed and considered before we made our final decisions."