MONMOUTHSHIRE residents have been warned that the way local services are provided will need to change over the next few years in order to make up a budget shortfall.

These changes could include charging for pest control and the collection of garden waste.

At a public meeting held in Abergavenny last week councillors explained that the county was having to make hard and difficult choices in order to make substantial savings.

Cabinet member Councillor Phil Murphy said,"This is not a pretty tale to tell. We are currently in unprecedented times, worse than the 1950s. This is not going to get better any time soon and I have no idea where we are going to end up.

"We are not cutting services, however we will have to find better and different ways to achieve our goal of reducing our current £4.3 million funding gap and introduce other long-term measures to plug the proposed shortfall of £16.5 million in 2016/17.

"This is a transitional year in which we are already implementing different measures including agile working, with our new headquarters having twice as many people as desks. As an authority we will be working from smaller buildings in the future using the latest in electronic gadgetry."

The cabinet member for finance and performance improvement added that the authority would be looking at a variety of measures to save money.

Charging for the collection of garden waste and rationalising car-parking charges would be the first to be investigated.

"We are looking at the possibility of charging for green waste removal - garden waste only, not food. This would save £420,000, but it could also be one of the most controversial measures. The system could be wheelie-bin-based or bag-based."

Other measures include reducing the range of children's school meals and at the same time putting their prices up by 5p to save £30,000; dispensing with leisure centre caretakers and where possible combining services; merging various departments and undertaking a review of staffing structures.

Other suggestions include charging for the pest control service which currently costs the authority £45,000; the withdrawal of the dedicated sexton services at Llanfoist and Chepstow cemeteries and replacing them with a mobile sexton, which will save the authority £30,000; dispensing with the printing of agendas for council meetings, which would save the authority £10,000.

The business community and councillors at the public meeting in Abergavenny were told that Monmouthshire County Council receives less funding per head of population from the Welsh Government than any other authority in Wales.

Councillor Murphy warned, "By the year 2033 there will be a major demographic change in Monmouthshire as half the population will be over the age of 65 putting pressure on the county's services.

"But more immediately the government's changes to the benefit system could cause problems in the authority collecting council tax.

"If the authority received the average payout from the Welsh Government we would have an £25.2 million extra to spend."

Leader of the council, Councillor Peter Fox confirmed that at the present time the authority was not considering raising the council tax, but added, "These are difficult decisions. We are trying to ease the pressure on people by not putting council tax up now but the reality is that a zero percentage rise is not sustainable and it will have to rise in future.

"This is the start of our cutbacks and it affects us all. There are big decisions to be made and we need to do things completely differently in ten years' time."

Car-park charges and fines have not been increased since 2007 and are being considered for an increase of 10 percent, despite a review of car parking in the authority being undertaken.

Abergavenny independent trader John Bannon asked the authority to be lenient when it came to considering increasing car park charges and fines, but Councillor Bryan Jones said,"Every year we are falling behind with the income from parking and unfortunately we are having to increase the charges to block the black hole."