Get the biggest stories sent straight to your inbox Sign up for regular updates and breaking news from WalesOnline Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

A councillor has likened ongoing budget cuts in Bridgend as to like being "on the Titanic".

Bridgend County Borough Council (BCBC) is facing £10m cuts to balance the books next year.

The cuts are on top of the tens of millions of pounds of savings it has already made in the last few years.

The council’s interim head of finance Gill Lewis told a special town and community council forum on Monday, July 29, that finding the cuts would not be easy.

She said: “We can’t pretend any longer that services are going to continue as they always have.

“Some will have to stop, some will most definitely be reduced.

“The reduction proposals will emerge as cabinet, council, the budget research and evaluation panel and directors work through them.”

Officers said the best case scenario involved a £2m cut in funding from Welsh Government while the most likely scenario was a £3m cut and the worst case scenario was a £6m cut.

The local authority is currently looking at increasing the council tax by 4.5%.

Last year it increased by 5.4%.

(Image: Bridgend Council)

The council said financial pressures involved unknown pay awards and pension costs.

Concerns have been raised that a delay in a comprehensive spending review being undertaken by UK Government will mean the budget for local government will not be set until March next year – an issue when BCBC has to set its budget at the end of February.

Maesteg Town Councillor Phil Jenkins asked council leader Huw David and chief executive Mark Shephard whether there would come a time when they would have to say they could no longer run the authority.

Cllr Jenkins said: “We know we’re on the Titanic. How far away is this iceberg before we’re hitting it?

“We can’t go stumbling in the dark all the time – there will come a time when people will say ‘enough is enough.’

“At the end of the day you are a business and when a business becomes unsustainable it goes into liquidation.

“All 22 local authorities in Wales are in the same boat and I sympathise entirely but we cannot keep going on like this – we need to know exactly where we’re going.

“At the end of the day there will come a crisis and we are looming into it.”

County council leader Mr David said there were already some local authorities in England that had “hit the ice” and effectively gone bankrupt.

But Mr David vowed: “I can reassure you of one thing – as long as I’m leader of this council we will not bankrupt this authority. There is no way that is happening.

“All 54 members will ensure we set a balanced budget.

“The risk is if austerity doesn’t end then we will be left with providing education and social services.

“We will educate people’s children, when they have special educational needs, we will provide them with extra support, we will discharge our statutory duty to get them to school on a bus or a taxi, we will keep children safe, we will look after disabled children, we will support older people but some of the other discretionary services like cutting the grass, like filling the potholes, we won’t do if we are to balance the budget in austerity.”

Chief executive Mr Shephard said there was a need to be different and adapt to the circumstances.

He said: “Two-thirds of our budget is spent on schools and social care – the forecast is that will increasingly become a higher percentage.

“The local authority has to act differently and form collaborative partnerships.

“We are talking about a much smaller organisation that seeks to carry out a lot of the services provided historically in a different way.”

The council is due to run its budget consultation from September 9 to November 3.

Council officers plan to attend town and community councils during the consultation period to explain the budget proposals.