THE total cost of the coronavirus crisis to the council’s budget will be more than £30m, the local authority has estimated.

Bury Council already faced a multi-million pound funding gap in its budget which was approved in February, totalling more than £22m over four years.

But the coronavirus crisis is now expected to cost the council an extra £30m.

Incoming council leader Eamonn O’Brien revealed the figures at a cabinet meeting.

He said: “This is quite clearly the biggest financial uncertainty we’ve faced in a very long time – to put it mildly. Yes, we’ve dealt with austerity and cuts for 10 years, and that’s been difficult enough.

“But the biggest challenge we have here is not simply the scale of the financial cost, it’s the fact that it’s so uncertain and so likely to be dependent on factors we simply cannot control – how quickly our economy recovers, how quickly we can lift the lockdown safely, the impact on people’s livelihoods, budgets, ability to pay basics like council tax and rents.”

So far the government has given Bury Council £10.6m in COVID-19 grants.

Cllr O’Brien added: “We obviously welcome any support that we get and, initially, we welcomed the very clear words and commitment from the government that they would do all that they could and whatever it took to support local authorities and the financial impact.

“I still believe that that was the right thing to say at the time and I think the government should stick by that.

“So far, it’s not clear that they are going to, but I think in the interest of being constructive and being serious about this, we just need to make it clear that that commitment is absolutely necessary and ought to be kept. And I keep an open mind as to whether they will.”

Cllr O’Brien, who is currently the cabinet member for housing and finance, confirmed that the council is not expecting to issue a Section 114 Notice, a statutory intervention which effectively declares the council is bankrupt.

But he warned councillors of “incredibly difficult decisions” ahead.

Chief finance officer Mike Woodhead told the cabinet he has never known a period of such uncertainty in more than 30 years of working in the public sector.

He said: “The figures we’ve got in the report are our latest best estimates but they will inevitably changed because none of us know how long this is going to go on for, whether there’ll be a second wave, whether vaccines or treatments will be developed and if so when, what’s going to happen with testing, how will government policy change to react to all of this.

“I think inevitably some of the answer will have to come down what we do locally, it’s not just going to be fixed by central government. But we need to lobby as strongly as possible.”

But speaking after the meeting, Conservative councillor Nick Jones blamed the ruling Labour group for mismanging the council’s finances for years.

He said: “Yes, the council has been hit financially in recent weeks due to loss of income. But the state of the finances should have been managed much better in the previous years, notably during his tenure as finance cabinet member.

“The budget deficit is in large due to previous years of the council continuing to miss their own savings targets and has no relation to Covid-19.”