A PLAN to delay public works and leave job vacancies empty to tackle the rising costs of coronavirus in north Oxfordshire has taken a step closer to being rolled out.

Cherwell District Council's executive, its most senior councillors. signed off on £2.4m worth of budget cuts on Thursday night.

The changes will next be debated by all councillors for the north Oxfordshire district at their meeting in September, after which the changes would start to be made.

The cuts, which include delays to some large projects, and a pause on recruitment into some jobs, follows on the heels of Oxfordshire County Council, which made similar preparations last week.

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As the executive met, the lead member for finance, Tony Ilot, said: "There’s no question about it that Covid-19 has hit a large number of councils. We are not alone in the boat that we are in."

Mr Ilot said others had written to government minister and that he had written to Banbury MP Victoria Prentis to highlight the situation and ask for more money, but had received a 'fairly standard reply'.

He added: "The government has put millions of pounds into councils across Britain. Unfortunately the money we have received doesn’t quite add up to the amount of money that we have spent."

His colleague Ian Corkin said the communication from central government on funding for councils had been 'infuriating'.

He added: "There is an existential threat to this authority and others. Pointing to what has been done will not close that gap. We need clarity, we need commitment, and we need it fast."

Cuts to services include staff vacancies not being filled, including in the planning department, the council’s customer services centre, and its housing team.

A plan to replace all lights at the council's Banbury HQ, Bodicote House, with LEDs has also been put on hold.

North Oxfordshire's Green Party was critical of the delay to the LED lighting, with Green councillor Ian Middleton concerned about the lack of council spending on energy efficiency to tackle climate change.

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Mr Middleton said: "These fairly minor budgetary elements could all have been absorbed by slightly increasing the amount drawn from council reserves to balance the budget.

"We can't demonstrate a real commitment to tackling climate change if these sorts of cuts and increases are some of the first things we propose when the going gets tough"

On top of the budget cuts, £1.2m of council savings, known as reserves, are being used to plug the total funding gap Cherwell currently faces, which is predicted to be approximately £3.5m.

Last week, Oxfordshire County Council's leaders agreed that £15m of budget cuts were needed to tackle a coronavirus spending shortfall.

These will also be debated by full council in September.