City council announces cutbacks

Lincoln City Council is preparing to cut £1.5m a year from its annual budget until 2012, council officials say.

The cuts are needed to balance the books and will mean a review of services offered by the city council.

Council spokesman Simon Walters said it would review all 400 different services to decide where money could be saved and which services could be cut.

City council leader Darren Grice said some of the cuts may be unpopular, but the council had little choice.

"As an executive, we will have to make some very hard choices but that is what we will have to do," Mr Grice said.

The council said it wanted to involve the public as much as possible before decisions were made on where the cuts would be made.

The council's total expenditure on services for 2006-07 was approximately £72.3m.