Wirral Council’s budget crisis has led the authority to propose cuts to bin collections, much-loved leisure facilities and other valued services.
To eliminate its deficit in the next financial year the authority must save £16.5m.
The budget consultation put out to the public last month included a proposal to scrap Europa Pools and move to three-weekly bin collections.
At last night’s meeting of the council’s environment and transport committee, one councillor came up with a new way of describing the problems the authority faces.
Labour’s Steve Foulkes said the “graph of doom” showed that unless cuts are made the council would be forced to limit spending to essential services only, meaning no further money could be spent on leisure services.
Although he did not present such a graph for the committee to see, Cllr Foulkes said Covid-19 had accelerated the graph which had now gone “off the scale”.
Cllr Foulkes added that councillors do not want to make cuts and that members should never stop making the case to the government to better support local councils.
The Claughton councillor said Covid-19 was like a war scenario given the sacrifices we have all made.
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Given this and the fact that the government has found extra finance for a “whole host of schemes”, Cllr Foulkes thought extra support for local authorities was warranted.
He added: “When you come back from a war, you don't want to come to back to a world that is worse, you want to come back to something that is better.
“If we carry on in this way and reduce our public services, those which are treasured by the public, we will come out of this war not with a land fit for heroes, but with a worse landscape."
The Labour councillor added: “We should never lose that passion for local government to say that we are a special case and we should be funded adequately.
“This is a sticking plaster budget to get us through to the next phase.
"Local government has been the fourth emergency service during Covid and it should be rewarded for that work, not rewarded with more cuts.”
Conservative councillor Alison Wright sought to defend the government, saying that hundreds of millions of pounds had been given to Wirral Council to help it through the pandemic, including grants to support local businesses.
However, Labour councillor Liz Grey said the authority was not being fully reimbursed for revenue lost due to the pandemic.
Asked to clarify how much support the council was getting, Shaer Halewood, the authority’s director of resources, said there is no support for the first 5% of revenue lost.
After that, the government reimburses 75% of the remaining 95% of lost income.
