Council services may face cuts (From Warrington Guardian)

Council services may face cuts

CHESHIRE County Council is bracing itself to make cuts to a number of services as it aims to keep its Council Tax increase to a minimum.

The authority's Conservative administration is proposing to reduce library opening times, cut down on grants to voluntary groups and ban all small traders from household waste recycling centres.

The council also intends to increase the cost of public transport, passing on increased costs to customers. In social services, legislation is being brought in to prevent parents of children with special needs needing to provide permanent care for life.

However, the authority plans to resist this legislation in a bid to save it £750,000 in the next financial year.

Council leader Clr Paul Findlow blamed the proposed cuts on the Government's 'harsh stealth tax regime'.

He said: "Increasingly, responsibilities are imposed on us without the requisite financing and all too often short fixed-term funding leaves the council to pick up the long-term tab."

He said the Government was forcing the council to spend an extra four per cent on secondary school pupils and an extra five per cent on primary school pupils.

Clr Findlow said: "This necessarily means that education's advantage is again likely to be the disadvantage of other service areas."

The council's Labour Group leader, Clr Derek Bateman, said the Conservatives had inherited a very healthy council from Labour three years ago.

But he said: "They have failed miserably to form any clear vision of the type of services they wish to provide and seem to have no interest in being real community leaders."

He said the funding from central government should allow the council to deliver a low Council Tax increase.

Liberal Democrat Group leader Sue Proctor MBE said the Conservatives had created their own pressures on the budgets by setting unrealistic savings that could never be achieved.

She said: "They've used reserves and carried forward overspends giving the impression that they've balanced the books, but they haven't."

rbabington@guardiangrp.co.uk