Sure Start centres pay the price as overall spending comes down £30m

More than £1m a year will have been removed from the area’s Sure Start budget by 2014 as part of the local authority’s four-year plan to reduce overall spending by £30m. However, the council’s member for children’s services, Tony McCabe, has pledged all 14 centres will remain open – albeit with reduced staffing levels and opening hours.

As in many parts of Yorkshire, library services will also be hit, with opening hours cut back and the mobile library service ended.

Spending on tourism and events will be reduced massively, by nearly £300,000 a year.

Residents can also expect a series of new fees and charges, with the council pledging to raise an extra £1m-a-year from parking charges and commercial property rents by 2015.

New charges will be introduced for residents who require new wheelie bins, and cemetery fees will also be increased.

With the council’s political make-up fairly evenly split between all three major parties, the ruling Lib Dem group needed the support of Labour councillors to push their budget through last month. Several cost-cutting plans were dropped as the price of Labour’s support, including schemes to reduce grass-cutting and park maintenance, and to introduce charges for pensioners on rush-hour bus services.

Opposition Conservatives are furious, however, as they believe the biggest cuts are being held back until after the local elections on May 5. Massive cuts to the council’s street-cleaning budget, leisure services and its Supporting People programme for vulnerable residents will all come in from 2012 onwards.