TORY councillors forced through Cheshire West and Chester Council’s £700m spending plans for 2011/12, with a zero increase in council tax, despite Labour claiming ‘simple steps’ could be made to balance the books.

The decision came at the end of a four-hour budget-setting meeting in Winsford.

Resources supremo and authority deputy leader Cllr Les Ford, (Con, Frodsham and Helsby) pointed out that since the council had been created it had saved £56m in costs and had reinvested £11m in front-line services.

Independent auditors had concluded its accounts were ‘unqualified value for money’.

Following the Government’s comprehensive spending review, the authority had been hit by a higherthan-expected cut in grant and had to save almost £26m during the next two years.

Despite the setbacks, the budget earmarked almost £115m to provide leisure and culture facilities across the borough in the first phase of its 10-year capital vision.

There were also priority investments of more than £7m in children’s services, including extra support for safeguarding children and more than £5m in adult social care and health.

Almost £4m would be taken from reserves to cover redundancy costs, with about 140 jobs, 2.5% of the workforce, expected to go as part of the need to make savings, mainly through wastage or voluntary redundancy.

Labour finance spokesman Cllr Justin Madders (Central and Westminster) suggested that, on past experience, he was not filled with confidence the council had the ability to meet the challenges it would face.

Cllr Madders said the last 12 months had been ‘littered with massive financial misjudgments’ and that ‘obvious opportunities for painless savings are missed’.

Labour was defeated on a series of votes which would have switched finance to children’s centres, voluntary organisations, community safety wardens, adult care, Connexions and playschemes.

Cllr Madders said Labour would have reduced the worst effects of proposed cuts, including taking simple steps to balance the books.

For the Lib Dems, deputy leader Cllr Bob Thompson (Hoole and Newton) insisted the 90+ page budget report was ‘opaque’.

He believed it could not be right to spend taxpayers’ money making redundancies and said: “We would make the money go further.”

Funds would be invested in regeneration across the borough.

Claiming the Tory administration had not spelled out how proposed efficiency savings would be achieved, he described the budget as ‘incomplete, inadequate and ill conceived’.