Our councils and communities cannot withstand further cuts!

For years now we've both been saying to anyone prepared to listen that further cuts to local authority budgets will have devastating and irreversible consequences for public services in our communities. The past five years under the coalition government have been extremely difficult but we have been successful in keeping our heads above water - just. 

Our fears now though are that the newly elected Tory government will slash local council budgets even further and deeper. We believe that this will put our libraries, schools, community centres and other public services at real and imminent risk of closure. 

We are not alone in this thinking. In advance of the chancellor's emergency budget announcement we find that even the Tory-led Local Government Association (LGA) has come to agree with our position (please click on the link below for full details in today's Observer/Guardian):

http://gu.com/p/49xbb/sbl

Our task for the months and years ahead is to campaign for an end to savage and unnecessary cuts to local council budgets and also to galvanise the support we have in our communities to organise a fight back. 

Make no mistake, these cuts are nothing to do with savings or paying back the debt. They are at the very heart of a spiteful and vengeful Tory ideology which is hell-bent on crippling Labour-run councils and the communities they represent.

We have pledged to fight back - but we all need to stand together as a community if we are to be successful!

Blackhall library, just one of the local services we will have to fight to retain