Council saving plans under review

Lincoln City Council is deciding how to save money after announcing a month ago that it had to save £1.5m a year until 2012 in order to balance the books.

Four hundred services are being reviewed to see which can be made more economical, altered or not provided.

On Monday the council announced more details in a long list of proposals.

These include higher parking fees, opting out of running Lincoln bus station and restructuring tourism marketing and the arts.

'Difficult decisions'

The local authority said its annual grant increases from central government were significantly lower than the cost pressures it expected over the next three years.

A list of services will be examined in phase one of the review programme when the council's executive meet on 15 September.

Decisions over the future of various services would be subject to detailed business cases being drawn up, the first of which would be reported back to the executive next January.

The council said it hoped the first phase of reviews would be complete by next June.

Leader of the City of Lincoln Council, Councillor Darren Grice, said: "We want to take responsible, appropriate action now to ensure we can meet the needs of our customers both now and in the future.

"We have difficult decisions to make but we are committed to ensuring we deliver quality core services for our residents."