Councils hit out at govt cuts
The Government’s cuts to local authority budgets have come under fire by the leaders of major city councils and rural authorities.
The Labour heads of Sheffield, Newcastle, and Liverpool city councils have written to the Observer urging the Government to ease the pressure on their budgets “before the forces of social unrest start to smoulder”.
The Tories are also under attack from their own councillors, with the Sunday Telegraph reporting that a coalition of 120 rural authorities are considering a judicial review against the additional 1.7% cuts announced by Eric Pickles earlier in the month.
Shadow Communities Secretary Hilary Benn accused the Coalition of being "completely out of touch" in a statement this afternoon.
"While Eric Pickles and David Cameron have imposed the biggest cuts in the entire public sector on local authorities, they are completely out of touch when it comes to the consequences," he said.
"Instead of standing up for local communities and the services they rely on, they are badly letting them down and all at the same time as they are giving millionaires a tax cut from next April."