Norfolk council budget: Job cuts and tax freeze

Plans have been agreed to cut £34m from Norfolk County Council's budget, which could lead to up to 200 jobs being lost.

Councillors also agreed to freeze its part of the council tax for a third consecutive year.

The Conservative-run authority's £1.5bn budget will also spend £250,000 to target funds from the European Union.

An extra £250,000 will go towards creating 20 apprenticeships with its commercial arm, Norse.

The budget has earmarked £1m to look at providing new housing which could be built by the council for sale and rent.

'Short-term'

The council pledged to redeploy as many people as possible, to reduce the number of job cuts.

Acting leader Bill Borrett said: "Faced with ever-reducing government grant we cannot afford to sit on our hands, we need to become more entrepreneurial in our thinking.

"Similarly, by entering the housing market, we can provide a real boost to the Norfolk economy by stimulating the construction industry which we know will boost local jobs."

A spokesman for the Unison union criticised the budget as being "short-term projects with short-term funding".

"What Unison is looking for is long term investment in Norfolk and unfortunately the county council did not go down that route."