TORFAEN council's executive have recommended final budget plans for the year ahead, including a council tax rise of nearly six per cent.

Councillors said they have aimed to protect the most vulnerable, with money invested in areas such as social care, as they met to finalise budget plans at a meeting on Tuesday.

The council needs to save around £3.5million in the next financial year, and is proposing a council tax rise of 5.95 per cent which would raise £2.5million.

Initial plans to remove a grant for three older persons forums have been removed, while a funding cut to Blaenavon Workmen’s Hall could be extended from five to eight years with smaller cash reductions.

Savings proposed include asking residents to sort their rubbish at the recycling centre, reducing the amount of waste sent to landfill, which could save £80,000.

Reducing the subsidy level to Cwmbran Farm and the use of agency staff in waste collections also feature in proposed cuts.

Areas such as social care and education have been protected, as have the council's cleaning and greening services.

Council leader, Cllr Anthony Hunt, said he was 'proud' the authority had kept priorities in tact amid financial pressures.

"We have tried to protect services that matter most to the vulnerable in our communities," he said.

"They might not be the people who can shout the loudest but they are the people who might otherwise have their lives devastated if we were to make deeper cuts to the services they rely on."

The proposed council tax rise means residents would pay an extra £1.50 per week, or £73.88 per year, on band D properties.

Cllr Hunt warned that saying council tax could be frozen and services would be unaffected was presenting "a false choice" to the public.

"If we had to make another £2.5million of extra cuts that would have a devastating impact on local services," he said.

"It would result in services closing, it would result in some of the things that the most vulnerable people in our communities rely on falling foul of greater cuts."

Cllr David Daniels said services that "hold our communities together" would be protected in the proposals.

He said the council was "doing the best of a bad job", and that if there was an alternative to council tax rises it would have been pursued.

And Cllr Richard Clark said the authority had taken "a pragmatic approach", warning that other councils who had frozen council tax risked creating "a false economy."

"We are failing the people if we just bury our heads in the sand and say no council tax rise," he added.

The final budget plans will be decided at a full council meeting on March 5.