Liberal Democrats propose alternative savings of £5m

At the meeting of the City Council on Wednesday the Liberal Democrats are proposing a package of alternative savings and re-allocations of expenditure that amount to over £5m and could save libraries, pools and sports centres at risk, sustain the play and youth services, give greater support to the cultural sector, and reduce the cuts to local neighbourhood environmental services and to budgets for the maintenance of roads and pavements.

We also propose a future local vote on council tax increase, and a submission to the Boundaries Commission to reduce the number of wards and councillors and to move to elections every four years.

The Council's budget consultation has been seriously flawed, as we believe that most of the decisions had already been made, there is precious little change after three months of consultation and controversy, there are sources of council income that are not considered in the budget and the consultation didn't even ask for views about council tax levels. We also believe that several cost pressures may have been overstated, for example expecting 18%, 7% and 8% year on year contraction of income for services over three more years seems unnecessarily pessimistic.

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