Bolton Council: Nick Peel's cuts warning to chancellor

This comes after the authority warned earlier this month that it was planning cuts of almost £11 million and to raise council tax amid “financial pressures” across the country.

And council taxpayers are facing a five per cent hike in bills from next April.

Council leader Nick Peel has now written to Chancellor Jeremy Hunt ahead of his autumn statement next week claiming that areas like Bolton have missed out.

Cllr Peel said: “Bolton deserves a fair deal.

“Government funding cuts have been unfairly targeted at areas like ours, in the north of England.

Cuts of nearly £11M are being proposed at Bolton Town Hall (Image: Newsquest)

“The Conservative Government has cut funding to our area by just over £122million, in real terms since 2010, which is equivalent to a 58 per cent of the funding we received from the last Labour government.

“Unfunded pressures are pushing council finances to the brink.”

A document put before Bolton Council earlier in November laid out a requirement to cut £10.9million from its budget over the year from April 2024 to March 2025.

This also assumes a 2.99 per cent rise in general council tax with a further two per cent rise ring fenced for adult social care.

More details of which departments this will be cut from are expected after a meeting in December, after consultations have taken place.

But Cllr Peel says that the government has “forced” council into taking this position.

He said: “Local family finances are still recovering from the Conservative government’s disastrous decisions that crashed our economy, under Liz Truss.

“The government should take responsibility for funding local services, rather than once again forcing councils to increase council tax bills.”

“The Chancellor must use the Autumn Statement to deliver the fair deal for Bolton that we deserve.

“If he cannot do that, the Conservatives should call a general election and give the country the chance to vote in a new government that has a plan to give Bolton its future back.”

Earlier this week, Bolton Council’s cabinet had met to discuss the impending cuts.

Cllr Peel told the meeting that the work done by council officers had made a “terrible situation infinitely better.”

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He said: “If it wasn’t for the excellent financial management that we have in this authority, things would be infinitely worse.”

But the Chancellor  has already argued that “winning the battle against inflation”  is dependent on getting people back in to work and getting borrowing down.

He said: “Thanks to deliberate action we’ve taken, being disciplined on spending, helping people into work and resisting calls for additional borrowing.”

He added: “There’s lots more work to do.

“We still have to bring inflation down to its target level of two per cent.”