A decision to cut street cleaning and grass-cutting services amid plans to make £700,000 savings is 'wrong', a Conservative opposition councillor has said.

Wokingham Borough Council last week announced that it was cutting costs due to budget pressures arising from high inflation, increased demand and low government funding. It means that bins will be emptied less often, grass left to grow longer, and roads swept less frequently.

The council said it would try to save £600,000 over three years by reducing the amount of times it empties some bins and clears bottle bank areas.

It also said it would save an additional £100,000 by reducing the number of times it cuts grass verges from six to four times a year – although it will keep the current level of service for parks and roadside verges that impact sightlines.

Councillor Ian Shenton, who is responsible for waste and environment services, said if the council didn’t cut costs it could go bankrupt, which would have 'huge consequences, including major service cuts and increases to council tax'.

But the Conservative opposition group’s finance spokesperson, councillor Norman Jorgensen, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that cutting these services is the wrong way to save money.

He said: “Cutting the amount of bins we have doesn’t seem like a sensible thing to do to me. A lot of bins locally get full and overfull.”

He added: “Different grass cutting regimes in different areas is appropriate. But some areas need to be kept short. Reducing the frequency of that as well doesn’t feel like the right way to go to me.”

READ MORE: Wokingham Council cuts street cleaning and grass cutting

Councillor Jorgensen acknowledged that government funding policies are putting councils under pressure.

He noted that councils will have to find more funding for adult social care once a cap on the amount service users can be charged comes into effect in October.

And he said the government could help councils by allowing them to keep more of the business rates they collect. Councils have to pay 50 percent of the rates they collect to central government.

But councillor Jorgensen said Wokingham Borough Council could try to find efficiency savings elsewhere rather than cutting frontline services.

He said: “The council has to be extremely efficient in its finances. We should be looking at efficiencies elsewhere, maybe in the council offices rather than frontline services.”

Cllr Shenton said: “Central government penalises us for being a well-off borough – we get £30million per year less than other local authorities like us.

“We know residents are used to the current level of service, but the reality is that we just don’t have the money to keep doing what we have been.”