Jobs axe to fall as council votes for £65m cut in budget

CARE homes and day centres face the axe in Hull after councillors approved unprecedented £65m budget cuts that will see more than 1,300 jobs axed.

A council meeting in Hull had to be adjourned after protesters refused to leave the public gallery last night – but despite the interruptions and hundreds of people demonstrating outside the city’s Guildhall, the savage cuts were voted through by the ruling LibDem group after six hours of debate.

Council leader Carl Minns said the proposals reflected the reality that the country couldn’t keep spending huge amounts every day to service its debt, adding: “I am paid to face reality and deal with things as they are and not as I would like them to be...

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“The reality is that a quarter of the council’s budget has disappeared – trying to pretend it didn’t happen is misleading.

“We are faced with reality and we are dealing with the worst crisis in finances in 50 years.”

Public pressure has saved one of three council-run residential homes under threat of the axe but two others are at risk.

All the day care centres bar two will close and be “reprovided” in other settings. Labour group leader Steve Brady said it would be “devastating” for the families concerned.

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There will be increased charges for adult social care, less street cleaning and road repairs in a city pockmarked by potholes. Despite extra savings being found, partly from Labour’s budget proposals, children and youth services face the worst cuts, with over 500 jobs set to go.

Opening hours at the city’s museums and art gallery will be reduced and most of their staff forced to work part-time and the council’s magazine will cease.

Despite a vigorous campaign, Albemarle Music Centre, which only opened in October 2007 and is a hub of musical activity for more than 700 youngsters, faces a 25 per cent cut in funding.

One of four council waste recycling sites will close.

Labour councillor Tom McVie urged residents to take revenge at the ballot box. He said: “On May 5, 12 of these Liberal Democrats are up for election. “There is a solution in your hands people of Hull, because I guarantee if Labour wins we will reintroduce our amendments as an emergency budget which will reverse the cuts in Carl Minns’ budget.”

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Labour had won union backing for their budget, which would have seen 700 fewer jobs go and staff hours cut to 35 from 37.

Union branch chairman Andy Stankard said the threat of compulsory redundancy remained: “If there’s no threat of compulsory redundancy we look forward to standing next to Carl Minns on the steps of the Guildhall when he tears up the section 188 (redundancy) notice and gives us an agreement of no compulsory redundancies like Labour has.”

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