ALREADY on its knees because of massive cuts imposed by the Government, Northumberland County Council has been left reeling by a new financial strait jacket imposed by Chancellor George Osborne in his Autumn Spending Review on Wednesday.

The council is aghast that it is facing core funding reductions of up to 36 per cent up to 2019/20, which will mean still more cuts in revenue spending of around £56m.

These come on top of budget cuts of £160m since the council was established in 2009, as well as an additional £44m already imposed for this year and next.

Council leader Coun Grant Davey said on Wednesday: “This can’t go on. Already in Northumberland we are consulting on closing a fire station, have cut post 16 school transport and subsidised bus routes to make these unfair cuts and there are many more examples.

“These are not things we want to do, but we have been given no other choice by this government.We are doing our best to protect frontline services such as libraries and tourist information centres by co-locating them with other council services to significantly reduce costs whereas other local authorities have closed them all together.

“However there will soon be nothing left to cut. We are reaching the tipping point now where even the most vital and statutory services will be hit.”

For his part, Hexham’s Tory MP Guy Opperman argued that the Autumn Statement was fundamentally good news for the North-East.

He said: “Employment and wages are up and businesses continue to grow. Over the last parliament 45,000 jobs were created, the number of businesses grew by 11,800 and weekly pay for full-time employees grew faster than anywhere else in England.”

Mr Opperman said he was particularly proud to see the Chancellor also announce plans for a new national funding formula for schools which will start to be introduced from 2017.

He said: “The plans will see the phasing out of the old arbitrary and unfair system which meant a child in Northumberland could receive £1,225 less in education funding than a pupil in Kensington and Chelsea.”