WIRRAL council has explained exactly why it chose to lend tens of millions of pounds to other local authorities.

The cash-strapped council has come under fire in recent months after reportedly lending £50m to others across the UK – but now finance chief Cllr Janette Williamson has clarified the reasons why.

She said the move is an alternative way to "generate income and be more efficient", and that last year it reaped financial benefit.

Cllr Williamson said: "Since the Tory-led coalition government was elected in 2010, Wirral Council has been subject to significant and savage funding cuts as a result of their austerity programme.

"Over the past eight years we have had to find £200m from our budget. This has put massive strain on the council.

"We have done all we can to protect front-line services and have not closed any libraries or leisure centres.

"Not once have Wirral Tories called on their own Government to review their funding of our borough.

"We have had to look at other ways to generate income, be more efficient in the way we do things and ensure we are only spending on things that really make a difference to our communities."

One of those ways, she said, is to invest money in other cash-strapped local authorities, and doing that last year, the council received "almost £30k in interest" that it then used for services.

"We are not allowed to spend this cash on providing services, fixing potholes and repairing street lights. We simply cannot do it.

"The money in our bank at any one time is for payments to our suppliers and to spend it on something other than that would be highly irresponsible and cost the taxpayers dearly.

"The Tories know this, that is why they did the same when they were briefly in charge,” she said.

According to Cllr Williamson, the £81m in reserves the council has is cash that can only be spent once, and could not be used for support for New Ferry following the explosion that hit the town last year.

"Some of these reserves we can only spend on specific things and we would reckless to use these funds on ongoing day to day spending as we can only use them once.

"We were able to use some of our reserves to help support the families of the New Ferry explosion and clean up the area in the immediate aftermath.

"It is financially irresponsible to simply demand that we raid our reserves.

"This is what Tory-run Northamptonshire Council did, and they are now bankrupt."

She referred to the council’s budget gap for 2018/19, of £45m, and said if nothing was done, all leisure centres, cultural venues and libraries "would have to close", and work to fill potholes and fix roads would cease.

She added: "I suggest that Wirral Conservatives start demanding that their own Government look again at Wirral's funding instead of misrepresenting and criticising Wirral.

"They couldn't even be bothered putting forward their own alternative budget last year.

"They voted against a council motion calling for fairer funding for Wirral.

"That demonstrates how much they care about Wirral and the residents we are elected to serve."

Cllr Ian Lewis, leader of the Conservative group on the council responded by saying: "A year ago, the cabinet member for finance told us she was a Marxist and yet here she is desperately trying to explain why her 'cash-strapped' council has £81m in the bank and is lending it to other councils at mates rates.

"If Labour Councillors think spending millions on private management consultants, the Wirral View newspaper, the Hoylake Golf resort and senior director salaries 'makes a difference for our communities' they are even more deluded than we thought."