Monmouthshire's council-owned tourist attractions will be expected to be self-sustaining or even turn a profit as the authority looks to plug a funding gap of £9million over the next four years.

Cabinet is meeting today (Wednesday 18th December) to discuss the proposed 2014/15 budget before a second round of community consultation meetings kicks off in the new year.

The proposed budget would see Monmouthshire County Council's (MCC) 'core priorities' protected – education spending maintained and social services spending increased.

Cllr Phil Murphy, the cabinet member with responsibility for finance, said: "Our principle throughout this budget process has been to ask how we can maintain existing services, rather than asking which ones we should cut.

"We asked for our communities to help us with that, which led us to being the first council in Wales to directly engage on next year's budget with the communities we serve at our five major towns throughout October.

"The budget we are to discuss this week is tough. But it protects as many services as possible. However, we still need to find another £1 million worth of savings to ensure a balanced budget next year."

The proposed savings include the 'consolidation' of the county's tourism and culture offer.

This means looking at 'shared service' and 'community-ownership' models, with the aim of making all of Monmouthshire's musuems, castles and Tourist Information Centres (TICs) self-funding.

The report effectively rules out the merging of libraries and TICs following member consultation.

A review of highways management would mean the council operating from just two depots, reducing gritting frequencies and introducing a biodiversity policy for the cutting of verges.

Street lights in certain areas would be switched off between midnight and 5am and the office accommodation for council staff – already reduced – would be reviewed.

The report suggests the community meals service should become cost neutral and that MCC invests in biomass boilers and solar farms.The number of street sweepers would be reduced, with town and community councils encouraged to contribute to the service.

The council would look to create a cost-neutral waste collection service and reduce costs in schools and social care services, while protecting front line funding.

The budget also assumes an increase in council tax of three per cent and says every effort will be made to avoid redundancies but "there may be some that are inevitable".

Council leader Peter Fox said: "We have already made huge savings through groundbreaking changes to the way that we work.

"We now operate in such a way that we simply can't be compared with anywhere else. We are the only local authority in the UK to operate a two staff to one desk working environment – which means smaller buildings and lower running costs.

"Our staff are equipped to work from anywhere and even the chief executive doesn't have his own desk.

"We use green technology to save on power bills and have already made millions of pounds worth of savings in back office costs.

"We are working at producing a better income from our tourist attractions and leisure centres and have embraced collaborative working with a range of initiatives around Gwent and beyond.

"But the unexpectedly high level of savings that we must make for next year is forcing us to look further. We are determined to adopt innovative approaches to maintaining as many services as we can, but I know that some of what we propose to do – especially around street lighting and litter picking – will be more visible to people in their day-to-day lives than the significant back office savings that we've already made."

Public engagement sessions will be held at Caldicot School on Thursday 9th January, Chepstow School on Tuesday 14th January and in Abergavenny on Wednesday 15th and Saturday 18th January.

Meetings in Usk and Monmouth will also be arranged.