BRADFORD Council Leader, Councillor Susan Hinchcliffe, has visited 10 Downing Street with fellow Council leaders to say council budgets are at “breaking point” after a decade of unprecedented government cuts.

Cllr Hinchcliffe handed in a petition to 10 Downing Street together with fellow Labour council leaders, including Newcastle’s Nick Forbes (Labour Group Leader on the Local Government Association) as they jointly made the call for a better deal for their towns and cities ahead of the Autumn Budget next week.

The Labour council leaders have said that funding for councils has been cut by 60p in every pound, which they say is a total of £16 billion of cuts to councils since 2010. The letter points out that councils have been hit harder by austerity than any other part of the public sector.

Cllr Hinchcliffe said: “In Bradford our net budget in 2020 will be around half what it was in 2010. That is a massive reduction. The government has forced these cuts on us year after year while knowing that at the same time we’ve faced rising demand for services, especially in essential services for vulnerable children and adult social care.

“Theresa May claimed at the Conservative Party conference that austerity is over, which is something the government has said time and time again and yet still it continues with its huge cuts. Once and for all, we need to see the Chancellor’s Budget on 29th October finally match the rhetoric. We are calling on the government to put urgently needed investment back into our local communities by delivering significant new funding for councils in this year’s Budget.”