Garden waste collections are a service for which local authorities can make a charge and ours are in line with a number of other Councils in Wales. In these challenging financial times, it is important that we do cover our costs when providing these collections as not to do so would affect the provision of other Council services. There are authorities that do still provide this service free of charge, but many of these are now considering introducing charges, including our neighbours Shropshire and Herefordshire.

Providing a service all year round would add additional cost which would need to be passed onto the customer. At the end of the season the amount of garden waste collected dramatically reduces which means running vehicles that are collecting very little material. The Household Waste Recycling Centres are open all year round and do provide somewhere for residents to take their garden waste over the winter period should they need to.

The Council received an unsolicited confidential offer to buy the property. In response, the Council obtained a market valuation for the property from a nationally recognised firm of professional valuers and was therefore able to assess that the offer was significantly above the market value of the property as identified by the independent valuer.

Thank you for your query.

Powys County Council has developed the following page on its website to house a range of trusted and relevant information around domestic energy saving and fuel poverty. You can find this here https://en.powys.gov.uk/article/13332/Household-energy-advice

In addition to this, there is also an innovative Energy Saving Scheme in Powys designed to address fuel poverty and reduce carbon emissions by adopting a 'whole house' approach and solution. You can find more information regarding this here https://en.powys.gov.uk/article/14595/Powys-Energy-Saving-Scheme-ECO4-Flex

Thank you for your comments. We have passed them on to the responsible service. If you wish to make a complaint, please email wales@bususers.org or buses@powys.gov.uk  

Thank you for this enquiry about housing disability adaptations.

Unfortunately, without details, the Council is unable to respond to specific situations. If you would like to discuss your individual circumstances, please contact Housing via,

• Email: housing@powys.gov.uk 
• Phone: 01597 827646

The Council does not currently have enough adapted homes to meet the level of demand for them. However, there is a programme of new build properties adding to the total number of homes owned and let by the Council, all new properties comply with the current building regulations and a ‘Lifetime Homes’ standard. This includes, but is not limited to, level access, wider doors and corridors, provision for potential vertical lifts, and a downstairs wet-room in all properties.

In respect of existing homes, Housing Services is able to adapt general needs homes if that is the only option available to meet a householder’s needs. We work with the household, and any specialists who are providing support, to consider alternative solutions, which may include a move to a different house that is better suited to their needs.

The Council operates a system of collecting recyclable material (paper and card, plastics and cans, glass bottles and jars, and food) every week with containers supplied by the Council.  There is no limit to the amount of containers that can be put out by each household each week. 

In order to maximise recycling, residual waste is collected every three weeks in either a wheeled bin or where properties are unable to accommodate a bin, a free allocation of three purple sacks per collection (delivered annually) which is the equivalent capacity to the wheeled bin.  The bags are purple and Powys branded so that the collection crews know that they are official Council bags.  They are instructed to not collect residual waste if it is not contained within the wheeled bin or in these branded purple sacks. 

The majority of households are able to manage by recycling as much as they can weekly, but we are able to collect additional residual waste if it is placed in purple sacks purchased from the Council.  The cost of these bags covers the additional cost of collecting and this is why they can only be purchased from the Council.  We do not encourage residents to purchase these bags as it is a much better option environmentally to use the weekly recycling service.  This also helps us to reach the stringent statutory Welsh Government recycling targets.  If residents are struggling with their residual capacity we would urge them to look at our website for recycling guidance or contact us so that one of our Awareness Advisors can get in touch.

The area of grass in Wills View, Norton is on the council's urban grass verge cutting schedule, which consists of a safety cut in May and July, with a full cut in September. This is the same for every town and village throughout Powys.

Presteigne and Norton urban grass verges are cut by the same contractor and usually on the same day.

Wills View is a highway grass verge, however there may be council housing estates in the area which do get more grass cuts. If you feel an area has been missed or cut to a poor standard, we suggest reporting this to our Highways team via the council’s website.

We are aware of the concerns from different people and have much sympathy with the arguments you have put here. In response we are planning a full car park review across Powys in the autumn. We cannot look at one town in isolation, we must address the challenges set for us as your local authority for everyone and ensure we can deliver the services we need to.  

We are under extreme pressure currently to deliver and manage services against difficult odds and this will continue in 2024. We have not increased car parking charges for over 3 years and continue to need to raise funds to maintain and support the facilities and services we provide for the users of the car parks. Fees for longer stays and permits have not been increased to help those who work and spend more time in our centres. 

The charges were recommended as part of the Council’s requirement to set a balanced budget for 2023-24 and were approved by the councillors at the Full Council meeting on the 23 February 2023, see Agenda for County Council on Thursday, 23rd February, 2023, 10.30 am Cyngor Sir Powys County Council (moderngov.co.uk). 

The service was targeted with achieving an additional £50k income from car parks in 2023/24 as part of the Finance Resource Model for 2023/24. Savings targets help the council to minimise council tax increases to Powys residents and helps the council fund budget pressure areas. We aimed to ensure budgets are assigned to areas most in need to provide services across the Authority. Every aspect of our service delivery was tasked with making savings including revenue from car parks.  

As mentioned a review of all the car parks across Powys will be undertaken in the autumn and will report back to the council in 2024.

We are aware of the concerns from different people in Builth Wells and have much sympathy with the arguments you have put here. In response we are planning a full car park review across Powys in the autumn.  To respond to your request to provide more short stay spaces, there are approximately 32 free, one hour parking bays within the town. We cannot look at Builth Wells in isolation, we must address the challenges set for us as your local authority for everyone and ensure we can deliver the services we need to.  

We are under extreme pressure currently to deliver and manage services against difficult odds and this will continue in 2024. We have not increased car parking charges for over 3 years and continue to need to raise funds to maintain and support the facilities and services we provide for the users of the car parks. Fees for longer stays and permits have not been increased to help those who work and spend more time in our centres.

The charges were recommended as part of the Council’s requirement to set a balanced budget for 2023-24 and were approved by the councillors at the Full Council meeting on the 23 February 2023, see Agenda for County Council on Thursday, 23rd February, 2023, 10.30 am Cyngor Sir Powys County Council (moderngov.co.uk).

The service was targeted with achieving an additional £50k income from car parks in 2023/24 as part of the Finance Resource Model for 2023/24. Savings targets help the council to minimise council tax increases to Powys residents and helps the council fund budget pressure areas. We aimed to ensure budgets are assigned to areas most in need to provide services across the Authority. Every aspect of our service delivery was tasked with making savings including revenue from car parks.  

As mentioned a review of all the car parks across Powys will be undertaken in the autumn and will report back to the council in 2024.

The planning consents for some of our recycling centres stipulate the hours that we can be open to the public, including weekends. While these do vary slightly between sites, for uniformity, we have set the operating hours the same across all five sites in Powys. The Sunday opening hours at our facilities also mirror the Sunday supermarket shopping hours.

While weekend operating hours are slightly less than weekdays, there is still sufficient time to access the recycling centres across the two days.