Lockdowns saw travel expenses of elected members reduced by around £25,000 at Pembrokeshire County Council but the overall cost of councillors topped £1million.

The latest figures show that the total allowances, including taxable benefits such as basic and senior salaries, paid to councillors totalled £1,133,453 for 2020-21.

In the draft statement of accounts for this financial year it notes that this total was £1,139,056 in 2019-20.

The total amount of travel/subsistence allowance paid by Pembrokeshire County Council was just £4,844 in 2020-21 compared to £30,643 the previous year – a saving of £25,799.

In 2019-20 £851 was paid to co-opted members for their travel to committee meetings, as well as £5,549 of allowances, which dropped to £4,996 for 2020-21 when there were also no travel expenses paid.

This year’s council accounts – open to public inspection for the last month – ran to more than 2,000 pages with the inclusion of the many business receiving covid-19 payments via Welsh Government, totalling around £75million throughout the pandemic.

In the last three years none of Pembrokeshire’s councillors opted to forgo a percentage of their basic salary and all received an office allowance of £500.