Merthyr Tydfil council has dropped plans to get rid of a scheme which helps pensioners pay their council tax.
As part of a £2m package of cuts and price rises the Help for Pensioners scheme was due to be scrapped.
But at full council on Wednesday, October 23, the cabinet member for finance withdrew the proposal after councillors voiced their support for the scheme.
Merthyr Tydfil is the last local authority in Wales which operates the Help for Pensioners scheme.
Welsh Government gave councils money for their local schemes between 2009-10 and 2012-13 in order to help pensioners with the payment of their council tax.
In 2013-14, Welsh Government decided to introduce an all-Wales scheme and in 2014-15 the Welsh Government changed its approach once again leaving it up to individual councils to decide what to do with their own scheme.
In March this year the council decided to continue with the scheme for 2019-20 but no other Welsh council has operated this scheme since 2017-18.
In this financial year 750 pensioners met the qualifying criteria which includes being of pensionable age and receiving partial but not full council tax reduction.
The minimum weekly award is 11p and the maximum weekly award is 96p with 673 pensioners currently getting the maximum.
The estimated cost to the council of operating the scheme in 2019-20 is £37,500.
But speaking at the full council meeting Councillor Darren Roberts, the leader of the Labour group, said they’d be voting against this proposed cut as they fully support the scheme adding that it is something they should be proud of.
Cllr Julian Amos of the Dowlais Independents group agreed that it was something they should be proud of and added that some cuts were step too far and this is one of those.
Following these comments Cllr Andrew Barry, Independent cabinet member for governance and corporate services, decided to withdraw the proposal.
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