Our budget for the coming financial year was approved earlier this month and it is a snapshot of our priorities and values. It would be wonderful to be able to do much more, but we all know that council finances have been squeezed and squeezed and demand has increased relentlessly.

Many councils are making cuts to core services. Reducing library hours, closing leisure centres, cutting support. We are not. We are making no cuts at all to any frontline service. Waste collections remain unchanged. Leisure centres remain open. Libraries continue to serve our communities. Recycling centres continue to operate. Community hubs remain in place.

More than that, our careful stewardship and financial management allows us not only to protect what matters, but gives us a little wiggle room to strengthen and prepare Monmouthshire for the future.

In education, we are investing a further £1-million directly into school budgets for the second consecutive year. An extra £95-per-pupil. That means more real support for our schools while catering for rising pay and pension pressures.

In Social Care and Health we are making significant additional provision to meet rising and increasingly complex demand, supporting both adults and children.

In addition, we listened to you. The issue residents raised time and again during consultation was the condition of our roads. So our new budget includes £5.65-million of investment in highways, structures, resurfacing, bridges, rights of way and property maintenance. And we have strengthened that commitment further with an additional £2-million over three years targeted at accelerating pothole repairs and improving carriageway conditions. This is practical investment residents will see and feel.

But I am not trying to hide the fact that it does mean that your Council Tax going to rise by a little under six per cent. This was not a decision taken lightly. We know you face financial pressures and many families are struggling to balance budgets.

The bare fact is that almost three quarters of all our expenditure goes on social care and education. And demand is rising faster than inflation. Costs are largely outside our control. If we didn’t raise the tax we would have had to reduce services. Fewer care packages. More pressure on schools. That was not something we were prepared to do.

I hope you see that we play fair by all: taxpayers, service users and future generations.

I’ll spell it out. We value our schools. We try to protect the vulnerable. We invest in our roads and infrastructure, maintain community spaces and take financial responsibility seriously.