150 jobs axed in cash crisis
At least 150 extra jobs are to be axed at Wolverhampton City Council and £41million to be cut from services, the Express & Star can reveal.
At least 150 extra jobs are to be axed at Wolverhampton City Council and £41million to be cut from services, the Express & Star can reveal.
Care homes may shut, five libaries be drastically reduced and next year's Christmas Festival be cancelled as the council tries to plug its financial black hole.
The shake-up, the biggest the council has faced, is blamed on the global economic crisis. Cuts will happen by 2011.
Thirty separate service cuts have been disclosed to the Express & Star, including slashing £750,000 from youth services.
Five of the city's least used libraries may only be used for dropping off books.
They are Bradmore, Underhill and Scotlands, Daisy Bank, Oxley and Mary Pointon, Woodcross.
Council departments are to be centralised, Christmas lights reduced in the city centre, Bilston and Tettenhall, and the Learning Disability residential care home, Sweetman Street, close.
The announcement comes on the same day it was revealed that 27 jobs are set to go at Cannock Chase District Council and Walsall Council bosses failed to rule out redundancies as it fights its own financial problems.
Wolverhampton's leader, Tory Councillor Neville Patten, said he "expected a hostile response" because of the scale of the cuts and job losses.
Pressures
He said: "It's always very sensitive when people have to lose their jobs but the council is not immune from the pressures of the economy. The funding we are getting from the Government is not good and we also have a mess that Labour left behind before we took control in May."
The 150 job losses across the council, will take place after May 2009 and continue until 2011, but workers have been warned that it could be more if the recession begins to bite.
Losses follow the announcement in September of 300 job cuts in five departments.
Councillor Roger Lawrence, city Labour group leader, said the crisis was overstated.
Unison branch secretary Adrian Turner said: "You cannot make savings of this kind without it impacting on jobs and services and we cannot rule out industrial action."
