Monmouthshire County Council has recently launched its annual budget engagement meetings, with the first taking place at Usk County Hall on Monday November 16.

The purpose of these meetings is to give members of the public throughout Monmouthshire an opportunity to discuss how next year’s budget will be spent on local services.

Further meetings will be held throughout the month.

Abergavenny residents will have the opportunity to meet with the council on Monday November 23 at King Henry VIII School between 6:30pm and 8pm.

Councillors and members of staff will be present at every meeting to outline the funding challenges faced by local government due to shrinking budgets.

Councillor Phil Murphy, Monmouthshire’s cabinet member with responsibility for finance said: “Our budget engagement programme has generated many valuable responses to our proposals and we warmly welcome community feedback.

“Our Monmouthshire Engages activity started last week, when we met with over 1,000 people in our towns, encouraging them to get involved in #MonmouthshireEngages via Twitter.”

Councillor Murphy was impressed with how the public have responded to the social media campaign surrounding the budget engagement opportunities, which have included an online survey, Youtube videos, and a poll hosted on Twitter.

He added, “We’re looking forward to meeting more members of public over the coming weeks.”

For information regarding the council’s future public engagement activities contact Rhian Cook on 01633 644364 or 07789 922586 or email [email protected]

The South East Wales Regional Equality Council has also organised a Monmouthshire Voices ‘Access for All’ meeting to discuss the budget.

This meeting will take place on Monday November 23 at Usk County Hall between 11am and 1pm.

To attend and find more information about the Access for All Forum contact Pennie Walker: [email protected]s or telephone 07949 040538.