BOLTON Council is expecting to have to close down vital services after it was announced that 30 per cent of the government’s local authority budget will be cut over the next four years.

Cllr Cliff Morris, who is still implementing £43 million worth of reductions agreed in this year’s budget, says the cuts will have a “huge impact” and will inevitably lead to service closures and job losses.

He said he was “very disappointed” in new Local Government Secretary Greg Clark for failing to fight for councils and believes he should now consider his position.

Bolton’s Conservative group are also prepared to criticise the government if they feel the reductions are unfairly weighted against authorities.

Mr Osborne announced this week that so far four government departments — including local government — had agreed to the 30 per cent cuts, ahead of the chancellor’s spending review on November 25.

Cllr Morris said such cuts — on top of what the council has already been asked to save — will mean services will be shut down.

He said: “We have tried very hard to continue to protect the most vulnerable people in our society, but if these cuts go ahead we will have to look at everything.

“We are getting to the point now where we are going to have to fully close down services that we operate in Bolton and we really don’t want to do that.

“I am hoping that Mr Osborne has a re-think on this issue and I am very disappointed that we appear to have a minister for local government who has just rolled over on this issue.

“He clearly is not fighting in our corner, if he doesn’t fight for us, who will? I think he should consider his position.”

Cllr Morris admitted that he has no idea where the extra savings will come from but said it will inevitably lead to job losses.

He added: “Yet again the government is not hitting the richest in society but is targeting the most vulnerable people that should be protected.”

Bolton’s Conservative group has previously been critical of the weighting of cuts on local councils and group leader Cllr David Greenhalgh said that may well be the case again.

He said: “We will have to look closely at the figures but 30 per cent is likely to leave us in a pretty bad place.

“As we have done in the past, we will continue to lobby the government on behalf of Bolton.”

“It may mean that, like we have done before, we end up criticising the government if we feel they are too heavily weighting the reductions on local governments.”

Fellow Conservative councillor Bob Allen reacted to the news on Facebook, stating that it is “frankly absurd” that the chancellor is cutting another 30 per cent from local government while protecting foreign aid and the NHS.