The leader of the opposition on Bolton Council slammed the idea of cutting services as he set out an alternative budget ahead of the debate at the town hall tomorrow (February 14).

The leader of the Conservative Group, Martyn Cox, said the idea of cutting services like recycling and street lighting while increasing council tax more than five per cent is "ridiculous".

The cuts are among reductions of £8.6m across all areas, from adults' services to children's services, and the authorities are set to use £10m in reserves to balance the books.

Cllr Cox said the impact on recycling – with beige bin collections set to be slashed to once a month – and the impact on street lighting – with brightness set to be slashed by more than a quarter in most areas – is avoidable as a result of the announcement of one-off funding from Recycle for Greater Manchester (R4GM).

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He is set to ask for the £1.2m funding from R4GM to be used on these services with what is leftover to be split between each ward for environmental improvements and highways improvements. He is set to ask for an extra £1m in reserves to be spent in the same way, taking the total for each ward to more than £66,000.

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Cllr Cox said: "We know there are pressures but at the same time, if the council has £152m in reserves, we think we can avoid these reductions and we think we can use the reserves to do a little more on environmental improvements and highways improvements.

"I think reducing collections and reducing street lights is a ridiculous suggestion. People who are paying £1,000, £2,000, £3,000 per year in council tax expect a reasonable service and the collections and the street lights are under this category."

The Labour Group is in need of a majority at the budget debate at the town hall tomorrow and it is in need of support from other parties as it has 28 seats out of 60 seats in the council chamber. The other parties are allowed to table an amendment, of which the Conservative Group amendment is only one of several which could come up over the course of the meeting.

Once the budget is approved it comes into effect for the financial year from April 2024.

This article was written by Jack Tooth. To contact him, email jack.tooth@newsquest.co.uk or follow @JTRTooth on Twitter.