A 'Dark Day for Local Services' as Autumn Statement Confirms Brutal Cuts

Following confirmation of massive cuts in funding for local authorities in the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Autumn Statement, Mayor Dave Hodgson declared that it was a 'dark day for local services'.

Lord Gary Porter, Conservative Chair of the Local Government Association, responded to the statement by saying that 'local services which people cherish will have to be drastically scaled back or lost altogether as councils are increasingly forced to do more with less and protect life and death services, such as caring for the elderly and protecting children, already buckling under growing demand.'

Commenting, Mayor Dave Hodgson said: "Here in Bedford Borough we have of course been very successful to date in protecting cherished local services. We will continue to fight tirelessly to save as many, and as much, of those services as we can. But before today we feared that we were heading towards a tipping point, beyond which painful cuts to important services would have to be made. Now we don't just fear it, we know it."

Based on warnings of major cuts from government prior to the spending review, Bedford Borough has estimated a requirement for £25 million of additional annual savings over the period to 2020, following on from the £81 million of ongoing annual savings which have been made since 2010 while fighting to protect front line services. While this week's Autumn Statement confirmed that cuts to Council funding overall will be huge, Bedford Borough's specific allocation will not be known for several weeks.

In the meantime, Mayor Dave will continue to make the case that local services here need fairer funding, and you can sign his petition in support of that case here: http://www.mayordave.org.uk/fair-funding