Wrexham Council losing out on £1m a month as income streams are hit by coronavirus pandemic

Wrexham Council has revealed it is losing out on about £1m per month as the coronavirus pandemic takes its toll on income streams.

The Welsh Government has announced a number of funding packages to support local authorities since the outbreak began.

It included up to £78m specifically to cover lost takings, £110m to assist with extra costs as a result of the virus, while £526m in revenue support grants was also brought forward.

However, council leader Mark Pritchard said the sum to plug the hole in earnings was needed as soon as possible because of the drop in revenue from services like leisure centres and car parks due to lockdown measures.

Cllr Pritchard, who heads up a coalition of independents and Conservatives, said: “The recovery all depends on how quickly the money can filter from Westminster/Cardiff into local authorities’ bank accounts.

“We are losing £1m a month on income. The Welsh Government have announced that they’re going to pay this money, but we don’t need it tomorrow, we don’t need it next week, we need it now.

“We can’t wait and what they’ve asked us to do is to send them a finance sheet of what losses we have.

“We’ve got that and all the other authorities across Wales have done it and we’re waiting for the money to come in.

“The recovery for me depends on the willingness and drive from both governments to allocate the funding so we can move on.”

While some frontline services, including waste collection, have been maintained during the crisis, others have had to be put on hold.

The council has implemented a phased approach to reopening facilities, which saw recycling centres start to welcome residents last month.

But it has warned that restarting services could be more difficult than stopping them.

Chief executive Ian Bancroft said: “Until we have a vaccine or until we have immunity within the population then test, track and trace is really critical so we know who has COVID-19 and they can be isolated so other people can resume normal business.

“Therefore, you could unlock services with a degree of some safety.

“We’re looking at having plans in place for recovering services and we’re bringing those back on a phased basis.”

A Welsh Government spokesperson said: “We recognise the funding pressures the coronavirus pandemic has placed on local authorities and the huge amount of work local government is doing to ensure public services continue at this time.

“We have made £110m available immediately to help local authorities with additional costs and brought forward £526m of revenue support grant payments from May and June to support them.

“We published a supplementary budget last week, which included up to £78m of further funding for local authorities in support of the impact on services of their lost income.

“We are discussing the detailed arrangements with local government.”