THE leader of the Liberal Democrats in Winchester says the council has agreed to a “disastrous deal” when it comes to a government grant settlement.

Lucille Thompson spoke out at a cabinet meeting where she said that Winchester City Council has not lobbied the government on its grant settlement which has been slashed.

Cllr Thompson accused the council of providing few details of any improvements or changes to services and accused the council of making taxpayers bear the brunt of the cost of coping with reduced grants from Whitehall.

A council document shows that the council will receive £2.46m for 2017 and 2018 - and a graph shows that compared to the national average other areas across the country Winchester is worse off.

Cllr Thompson described this as a "disastrous deal".

Cllr Thompson said:"Yet again, we see a paper which contains lots of words and numbers but very little detail about the council’s core activities. This council is first and foremost a service provider to our local residents, but there is no detail about any changes or improvements to those services.

"There is no detailed analysis of the revenue and the cost of services. We have no evidence whether the administration has tried to identify savings or increase income from services. It seems that they just decided to put the burden of the reducing grant onto the council taxpayer. It is local taxpayers who will suffer most under these plans."

"It is there in black and white showing that Winchester district residents will receive a significantly lower grant per head compared to the national average. And that it is understood that we have above inflation increases for the next 5 years.

"This Conservative administration has agreed a very bad deal for local people. Will the leader lobby the Government to get a better deal for local taxpayers?

The Tory agreement means that in just two years time over six per cent of our Council Tax will be given to other councils.

"Why does the leader think that taxpayers across the District should subsidise other councils?

The council has lost £1.4m in government funding which is 5.5 per cent of the general fund revenue, and the cabinet have recommended a £4.32 council tax increase for Band D properties Portfolio holder for finance Stephen Godfrey explained that the authority is doing its best to cope with less revenue coming in from central government.

A council tax increase, a focus on capital projects to bring money in, parking charges and an "entrepreneurial” approach are a number of ways that the city council aims to balance the books according to Cllr Godfrey.

Cllr Godfrey said: “I have mentioned the increasing pressure on the council resources, we are facing these challenges through the efficiency plan and we are improving the way we work."

"There is a difference between the settlements for rural districts and urban districts this has been growing over a number of years we had hoped after the introduction of sparse areas grant we would see some of that disparity corrected but it has not been done so there is still a marked difference between rural and urban areas, Winchester is not alone in this situation."