The council is seeing its budged reduced by 26%

Street cleaning, pest control and community support are three areas targeted in the latest round of council cutbacks.

Preston City Council has revealed its budget will fall by £3.6 million and council tax will increase by 2 per cent.

Town Hall staff will go, as up to 80 jobs are to disappear in the next three years.

Councillor Martyn Rawlinson, cabinet member for resources, outlined where the cuts would be made.

He said: “Street cleaning, Parks, Pest Control, and Community Support Officers are all going to be cut back during the next year. Looking further ahead, cuts will also have to be made across every single service and we will carry out a series of service reviews to deliver these savings.

“We will also conduct a review of management across the whole council to achieve further savings. Fees and charges for a number of council services are also going up, which will raise more in income for the Council.”

Leader of Preston City Council, Peter Rankin, blamed the decision on London.

He said: ““Yet again, Preston one of the hardest hit councils in the country for the amount cut from its Government grant. After already losing 26% of our budget, we now have to find a further £3.6m by 2017/18

“We have done everything we can to protect services. We’ve cut back-office services and made the Council much more efficient, but the scale of the cuts we’re facing means that all Council services are going to be affected one way or another.

“Over the next three years, the Council is looking at losing up to 80 posts. We hope to achieve this by not filling vacant posts and through voluntary redundancies where possible. However, given the level of budget cuts we have to make, some compulsory redundancies are possible by 2017/18.”

The proposed budget is now out for consultation, so members of the public can give their views on what is proposed.

The full budget is available on the council website.

A final budget will go to the council in late February.

What do you think? Where should the council make cutbacks? Let us know in the comments below