BRADFORD Council’s top team is sticking by a major programme of cuts after its leader said they “can’t afford” to reverse them.

It means planned cuts to a host of Council services, from social care to public toilets, are likely to be approved at the Council’s annual budget meeting on Thursday, despite a consultation with the public which saw thousands of people raising objections through petitions, letters and meetings.

At a meeting of the Executive today, Bradford Council’s Labour leader Councillor Susan Hinchcliffe today confirmed that most of the “painful and grim” cuts her authority had proposed in December remained on the table, which includes the loss of a further 416 jobs over two years.

She said: “Sadly, we have not been able to reverse any major cut proposals in this budget. We can’t afford to.”

But she insisted they had listened during the consultation and she unveiled some minor tweaks, including:

- A £250,000-a-year fund to help voluntary sector organisations become more self-sustaining;

- The Council’s Stockbridge depot to remain open;

- Breastfeeding services to be recommissioned;

- £25,000 extra for winter gritting for each of the next two winters;

- A £100,000 fund to support groups which want to take over community assets, such as community halls and bowling greens;

- A three-month reprieve for healthy eating and exercise groups whose funding faces the axe, to allow them to find funding from elsewhere.

Cllr Hinchcliffe was highly critical of the Government’s austerity programme, calling it “a choice, not a necessity”, and said as the authority was having to find a further £82m of cuts by 2020, it was having to hit services “people want to keep”.

The meeting had heard last-ditch pleas to protect both bowling greens and community halls from cuts.

Councillor Jacqui MacFarlane, of Denholme Town Council, called for a re-think on plans to either close Denholme Mechanics Institute or hand it to a community group.

She said: “It is a sorry state of affairs that in the 21st century, we are saying we cannot afford to keep this invaluable resource open for the people of Denholme, particularly the elderly residents. They deserve better than this.”

And 86-year-old Frank Rhodes, a bowler at Baildon, warned that clubs would close if the Council stopped its maintenance of the greens as planned.

The budget meeting will start at 4pm on Thursday and will be the first to be streamed live on the internet.