RESIDENTS across North Yorkshire are to be asked for their views on plans for cuts to social care and bus services in the region as council bosses say they have been left needing to save an extra £66 million.

North Yorkshire County Council revealed the new savings target it must meet between 2015 and 2019 following the Government’s Comprehensive Spending Review last month.

It already has to save £92 million over the four years leading up to 2015 and has proposed a series of measures for 2014/15, including no longer providing social care support to those classed as having moderate needs.

Free community-based social services for some residents would end and the council would cut its bus subsidies by £1.1 million a year, while charges would be introduced for disposing of construction and demolition waste and the cost of post-16 transport to schools and colleges would be reduced by £400,000 a year.

A full meeting of the council today agreed to start a public consultation in the proposals. Council leader John Weighell said: “This is not a position any of us relish - indeed, it is on the contrary - but we have to face up to the financial realities being imposed upon us and take what steps are necessary to ensure we are able to face the future in as sound and healthy a state as we can possibly achieve.”