MONEY should be taken out of the winter roads budget to save the under threat Yearsley Pool and Castlegate youth centre, Green party councillors have said.

Cllrs Andy D'Agorne and Dave Taylor - who both represent Fishergate - have put forward their budget proposals to be debated beside the ruling Labour group's schemes at a crunch City of York council meeting on Thursday.

Keeping Yearsley Pool open and leaving the Castlegate service in its current home are the cornerstones of their plans, they said.

Cllr Taylor said: "The Castlegate Service for young people really has to be a priority. Research shows that for every £1 spent on preventative mental health therapies, £15 is saved in the longer run."

The money to keep the services running would come from reducing planned increases to the winter maintenance budget which is used to make sure roads damaged in a particularly severe winter can be fixed. Extra cash will also be taken from the council's contingency funds and the Delivery and Innovation Fund.

Although the plans still need to be fully checked and scrutinised by financial staff, early indications show the roads and contingency funds could cope with the lower budgets, Cllr D'Agorne said.

The Green amendment would see the £250,000 annual council subsidy for Yearsley Pool kept up until a business case is developed to keep the baths open.

Other key areas include a plan to protect Children’s Centres with an extra £100,000, and keeping £115,000 for council apprenticeships which the current budget would scrap. They also want to save a job threatened in the overstretched design and conservation department, and reverse £50,000 of cuts to the library service.

Cllr D'Agorne said: “The Green Party has consistently opposed the process which has not only placed our library service outside of direct council control but has imposed a series of funding cuts at the same time. Labour’s budget line on libraries funding is quite specific that it will involve a reduction in library service levels."