Savings may be needed to plug £6m South Cambridgeshire budget gap

South Cambridgeshire District Council said it would look to make investment to make up the shortfall

A council will need to make further savings and try to raise more income to plug a £6m budget gap over the next five years.

South Cambridgeshire District Council's head of finance said there was a risk future funding could be moved away from district councils to county councils.

Peter Maddock said he had never seen as much "volatility and uncertainty" during his time in local government.

The council said investments could be made as it was in an area of growth.

At a meeting of the scrutiny and overview committee, Mr Maddock said it was "becoming more and more apparent" district councils would have less funding by 2025, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

'Significant savings'

He said: "In order to meet that challenge clearly from the council's point of view we need to make savings.

"Obviously there is a risk at some stage you make savings and at some point you will not be able to go further.

"I am certainly confident that in the next couple years the transformation programme will be able to deliver significant savings over that period."

Mr Maddock said an ability to generate income through investments would be "less painful" than cutting services.

Councillor John Williams, the cabinet member for resources at the Liberal Democrat-led authority, said it was "looking for income and that includes investment income as well as looking at loans to other organisations".

He said the Greater Cambridge area was "probably the growth area for the UK at the moment".

Mr Williams said he could not predict whether investments would offset any possible shortfall "but we will do everything we can to make sure that we can do that".