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Two of Wales’ best-known cultural venues – St David’s Hall and the New Theatre – are under threat as part of a huge cuts programme proposed by Cardiff council.

The authority’s Labour administration, which has to make savings of £50m this year alone, says it can no longer afford to subsidise the two buildings.

Russell Goodway, the council’s cabinet member for finance, said: “We are trying to find an outside provider who would be prepared to take the venues over.

“I am more optimistic about finding a company to take on the New Theatre than I am about St David’s Hall. We are talking to Live Nation, the firm that runs the Motorpoint Arena, about the possibility of their taking on the New Theatre.

“We are also talking to the Wales Millennium Centre about the possibility of taking on the shows currently put on in St David’s Hall. What’s important is bringing people into the city to see the shows, rather than the buildings they see them in.”

St David’s Hall, which opened in 1982, can accommodate an audience of 2,000 while the New Theatre, which has a capacity of 1,144, celebrated its centenary in 2006.

St David’s Hall is currently subsidised by around £1.2m a year, with the New Theatre getting a subsidy of around £800,000. Under the budget proposals, savings of £530,000 are hoped for in 2014/15.

The cuts, which were formally submitted for consultation to a full council meeting last night, affect all the authority’s departments. Altogether it is planned to lose 700 full-time equivalent posts.

Asked whether the council would be able to retain its policy of no compulsory redundancies, Mr Goodway said: “Although we’ve officially had that policy for at least 20 years, it’s a bit of a fiction. Jobs have had to go. When people have been offered the choice of taking voluntary redundancy at enhanced rates or taking the statutory minimum, they opt for the voluntary package.

“But they didn’t have the option of staying, so saying it’s not a compulsory redundancy is a bit of a nonsense.”

The majority of the savings will come from cuts in overheads. The direct impact on service delivery will be £9.2m.

Other major cuts proposed include the closure of youth schemes and children’s play centres. While no branch libraries or leisure centres will be shut, Cardiff Central Library is facing cuts of £500,000.

The local studies department will be shut, with its stock and material transferred to Glamorgan Archives. Help desks will be reduced in number and the library will be shut for one day a week.

The council is planning cuts in the provision of care services to elderly people. A note in the cuts proposals document states: “Service users will not have to move from their homes unless their care needs can no longer be met in a supported living environment. Any change for service users would only be if their needs could no longer be met within the existing service.”

Street cleansing faces a budget cut of £805,000. When major events are held in the city on a Saturday, for example, cleaning the streets will usually have to wait until Monday to save on overtime payments.

Council leader Heather Joyce said: “This year we have had to face some very tough choices in trying to set the budget and everyone has been working hard to try and identify savings that can be made which protect our key priorities as well as minimising the impact on our service delivery.

“But with the scale of the task in front of us we have had no alternative but to suggest some very difficult things as we have to balance the budget and we have to keep on providing those services which have been prioritised such as education, the vulnerable and increasing opportunities to attract jobs and investment.

“And I have also made it very clear that my cabinet colleagues and myself must take some share of the pain which is why we have pledged to take a 2.7% cut to our allowances and we will be calling on members of the other parties to do the same.”

Mr Goodway said: “Further very significant cuts are expected in future years. In my opinion it is essential that we press forward with the proposal to merge with Vale of Glamorgan Council as quickly as possible.

“That will enable us to make the level of overhead cost cuts that will help us cope with reducing budgets. The merger is likely to take place towards the end of the decade, but we need to be making progress in the meantime by making efficiencies in collaboration with the Vale as soon as possible. There is a lot of resistance within my own party to council mergers, but I believe they are absolutely essential if we are to cope with the further cuts that are coming.”

So far as the budget for 2014/15 is concerned, Mr Goodway said: “There is no doubt that the level of savings we need to find is going to mean the way we do things has to change. Part of the budget setting exercise has been about examining mechanisms other than service reductions to close the budget gap including service redesign, identifying alternative sources of funding, increasing income streams and employing alternative delivery arrangements. It is very important that we hear the views of as many people as possible in relation to our budget savings proposals.”

All the responses to the public consultation exercise, which can be accessed online at www.cardiff.gov.uk , will be fed into the cabinet’s proposed budget which will be discussed by cabinet on February 20 and debated at full council on February 27.