A proposed budget containing more than £6m worth of cuts in services was agreed by city council leaders yesterday.

The four Liberal Democrat and two Green members of the executive board voted through the proposals, which include plans to make at least 75 out of 1,500 staff redundant.

Any increase in council tax will be limited to four per cent, and £1m worth of savings are to be made from the homelessness budget.

On a Band D property, council taxpayers can expect to pay about £8 more per year.

The Labour group submitted its own budget, but this was rejected.

Members of the three political groups will now have the opportunity to table amendments to the administration's budget, which could be accepted when all councillors meet to ratify the budget on February 11.

The council also plans to sell £8m worth of property, partly to pay for the proposed redundancies.

Council leader Corinna Redman said: "In the past, there has been a failure to address unsustainable levels of spending."

As well as the job cuts, the Northway Sports Centre in Marston faces closure, as does Oxford Women's Training Scheme because its annual £250,000 looks set to be withdrawn.

Bill MacKeith, spokesman for the Oxford Trades Union Council, which has 15,000 affiliated members, told the executive the organisation strongly disapproved of the cuts contained in the budget, particularly the idea of selling property to fund redundancies.

Peter Johnson and Susan Brown, Labour councillors for Wood Farm, asked the Liberal Democrats and Greens to change their minds over plans to close Wood Farm housing Office.

This is paid for from the tenant-funded housing revenue account, which is not affected by the budget proposals.

The administration is planning to deploy Wood Farm Housing staff at other centres, but the Labour group is insisting that surgeries for tenants should still be held there.