Latest Council reports show that cuts to Stockport are set to increase, again. Since the Council Budget in March, changes made by the Lib Dem and Tory Government have meant that the total the Council has to cut from services has increased by over £12million!

Stockport Council now has to make a total of £93million of cuts from 2011 to 2016/17. The Lib Dem Council has already cut over 800 jobs, cut parks’ budgets, made cuts to Children’s Centres and cut District Centre Stewards. To save more money they have also proposed cutting opening hours for libraries, with the library in the most deprived area being cut the most, and removing all funding for the Council’s Play Development Team that provides out of school activities and other services for kids.

What makes these cuts even worse is that it is poorer areas that are being hit the hardest by the Government. David Cameron’s local council – West Oxfordshire – is actually seeing funding increasing whilst Stockport suffers!

Cllr Alex Ganotis, Shadow Spokesperson responsible for Finance, commented about the increase in cuts that will need to be made: “The Council is now facing cuts from this Government of over £93million in total. That figure has gone up by over £12million since the Council’s Budget in March. My fear is that the scale of these cuts mean that finding ‘efficiencies’ in services, as the Council has tried to do so far in the main, just won’t balance the books.

“Due to the failure of the Lib Dem and Tory Government to get the economy growing and the unfair distribution of cuts to local government, services are now under extreme pressure and yet they want more and more cuts. The situation isn’t sustainable and the way in which these cuts are being implemented shows the contempt with which this failing and incompetent Government holds local government.”