Lambeth Council announces details of £37m cuts (From Your Local Guardian)

Lambeth Council announces details of £37m cuts

5:43pm Friday 21st January 2011 in News By Thais Portilho-Shrimpton

The council has announced details of the cuts it will have to make to save a whopping £37m in the next year.

Cuts include the end of the council’s free publication Lambeth Life, savings of £1.2m in the cultural services department, which will include the scrapping of two mobile libraries, and reducing funding for anti-youth crime projects - to be totally axed within two years.

Eleven park rangers are set to lose their jobs and save the council £400,000, while the sacking of 24 lollipop ladies will help save £150,000.

The communications team will be reduced to 20 from 43 full time employees.

Lambeth Labour blamed the government for the cuts.

Councillor Steve Reed, leader of the council, said: “Our budget is £310m and they’re cutting £90m over four years. With such cuts it’s impossible not to cut frontline services.”

Liberal Democrat leader on Lambeth council, Ashley Lumsden, said: “This Labour administration in Lambeth is continuing to waste public money at an alarming rate and in a return to the borough’s dark past it is frittering it away on political posturing and at the same time burying its head in the sand.”

“I have myself complained to the borough solicitor about the administration’s claims of being ‘forced’ to make cuts. The council has a wide range of alternatives to slashing services – cutting waste and reducing the council’s bloated reserves are just two.”

For a comprehensive list of cuts and reactions read the Streatham Guardian, out on Thursday.