Liverpool City Council is facing its worst cash crisis ‘since the Second World War’.
Council leader Joe Anderson fired the warning on Tuesday as the local authority is set to incur a £57.6 million gap over the 2020/2021 financial year.
It is estimated that a combined £436m has been slashed from the council’s budget since 2010 due to the impact of the Tory party’s austerity measures.
An emergency budget meeting has been called with opposition councillors demanding urgent talks with the Government in a bid to ease the situation.
A joint motion by the leaders of Labour, Liberal Democrat, Green and Liberal Party will warn that the council has ‘no financial options left’ after exhausing its reserves.
Research by Centre for Cities, an independent think-tank, revealed in January this year that Liverpool has lost £816 of funding per resident since 2010.
“We’ve been savaged by austerity over the last decade and there is no area of council spending that has not been affected, including the loss of more than 2,500 staff,” said Mayor Anderson.
“I am incredibly proud that we have managed to keep delivering services and protecting the most vulnerable in our city, including the homeless, people affected by welfare reform and young people and adults needing social care support.
“Along the way we have managed to find innovative ways to build new schools and create good quality housing, despite the Government axing schemes which were worth hundreds of millions of pounds to Liverpool.
“It is only down to our ingenuity and the terrific hard work of our staff and partners that we have kept the show on the road, and avoided going bust like some other local authorities.
“We’re now at a point, with our reserves exhausted, of being in a precarious position when it comes to protecting services that people rightly cherish.
“We must be frank and honest with people about the situation we are in, and have a conversation with them about what council services will look like in the future.
“As elected members we must work together for the good of the city – because this really is the worst crisis we have faced in Liverpool since WW2, particularly when you consider all the uncertainties of Brexit.
“And we have to get the message across to Government that we need to see urgent reform of local authority funding so that it is fairer to northern cities and towns – otherwise the future looks extremely bleak.”