Council plans to dim street lights and move to four-weekly paper waste collections as part of £9.1M cuts

Bolton Council has revealed in detail how it plans to cut more than £9M from its budget to balance the books. The cuts which include dimming streetlights and only collecting paper and cardboard waste every four weeks will form the authority’s spending plan for 2024/25. The cuts include £4M trimmed from adult care in the borough with the efficiencies gained by a review of ‘care packages, placements and housing demand’.

Around £1M will be cut from children’s services including a review of non statutory subsidies for some transport provided for youngsters. The proposals include moving paper collections to a four-weekly cycle hwich wil save £412,000 and what is described as ‘dimming and trimming’ street lighting across both residential streets and the wider road network to save £460,000 a year.

Other cuts include reviewing ‘alternative delivery’ of two of the 10 libraries in the borough. Around £500,000 is expected to be found by using the household support fund to support welfare payouts.

The cuts in total amount to £9.14M for 2024/25. The draft budget assumes an increase in council tax of 4.99 per cent from next April which includes two per cent ring fenced for adult social care.

Large scale job losses at the authority have been avoided in the plans but there is a headcount reduction of around five full-time employees. Some of that will be achieved through deleting employment vacancies that currently exist.

The council currently employs the full-time equivalent of 2,724 workers. The update will go to the council’s cabinet for them to be kept informed next week and then to public consultation.

The budget will still be subject to change until it is agreed by the full council in February. The leader of Bolton Council, Coun