YORK’S council should abandon ambitious plans and stop borrowing money, and instead spend cash on basic services like garden bin collections, opposition councillors have said.

The Liberal Democrat group yesterday set out its own draft budget for the City of York Council.

It follows the ruling Labour group’s official budget proposals – which include a Government-funded council tax freeze, almost £20 million in budget cuts and £40 million of one-off capital investments.

The Liberal Democrats want to reduce senior council management, and rein in borrowing and big projects such as the digital media arts centre plan for the Guildhall, and the Reinvigorate York programme of facelifts for parts of the city centre, so the money saved on loan repayments can instead go on frontline services.

Group leader Keith Aspden said: “Our plans scrap the damaging cuts proposed by Labour to things like community centres and road repairs. They would also stop Labour’s plans for further cuts to street cleaning and litter bins.”

He said they would put an extra £3 million into basic services, ruling out charging for garden bins and bringing back winter collections, and put more money into recycling.

Cllr Aspden added: “We also want extra local funding to close the gap in performance between children from disadvantaged backgrounds and their peers – a gap that in York under Labour is the biggest in the country.

“To support this commitment to young people we would protect advice and counselling services, defend local Children’s Centres from cuts and reverse Labour’s plans to stop funding apprenticeships. “We would also set up a new £500,000 Community Fund – giving communities the money to spend on local priorities such as extra litter bins or improved bus stops.”

The budget proposals were approved by the council’s cabinet on February 10, and now need approval of full council next Thursday, February 26. With Labour in minority control, the party needs support of at least one other group to get their plans passed.

The Lib Dem proposals will be scrutinised by financial experts at the council, and then go into an amendment to be debated and voted on at the full council meeting.