Welsh Overcast No.13
Pembrokeshire Faces Soaring Council Taxes.
For years now Pembrokeshire has enjoyed the lowest council tax rates in all of Wales, it's rates standing at a mere £1,128 for a Class D property. This is quite astonishing considering that the national average is almost 25% higher than this standing at a considerable £1420. However the borough has faced scrutiny by Cabinet Members for not sustaining their tax with the national average and failing to meet financial expectations.
Alun Davies has permitted a proposed 12.5% rate hike in the area for citizens, which has been passed and will be full confirmed by March. Cabinet Member of Finance Bob Kilmister has been defending the decision over outcry from the public, insisting that the extra money was needed to cover a deficit of £16m caused by over expenditure and revenue downfall. The response of the public was 10x greater than usual in volume, and will not sit well with residents of Pembrokeshire unless they truly see the extra money being used for their benefit.
Superfast Broadbrand
Openreach has been contractually operating with the Welsh Government in the Superfast Cymru initiative to bring new 30Mbps+ broadband to homes all across Wales. The initiative has reached over 720,000 residences in the last year and is pledging the service to a surplus of 2,500 at no extra cost to the taxpayer. However this new broadband is available to people to over 94% of the Welsh population depending on area, but is not yet scaled to this proportion.
A new £80 million plan by the Government will aim to optimise this 94% capacity in Wales by bringing the Superfast broadband technology to more rural and off track area in Wales. This will be crucial for mass implementation and progressive scaling of Superfast. This project will be greatly beneficial to the infrastructure of our countries economies, businesses and institutions and will make our internet capable of withstanding the data volume of 5G networks and the IoT. Such adoption would improve the economical outlook and ability of our country in the years to come.
Check out my last Welsh Overcast Report if you haven't already.
https://steemit.com/wales/@blockchainboom/welsh-overcast-no-12