Stoke-on-Trent council to cut 710 jobs

Cuts were approved at a meeting in Stoke-on-Trent

Plans to cut 710 jobs and reduce city council funding for swimming pools, libraries and care homes in Stoke-on-Trent have been approved.

About 30 protesters attended the Civic Centre where £36m cuts were approved.

Shelton and Tunstall pools, Burslem and Fenton libraries, Heathside and Eardley House care homes and other facilities will not be funded with council money.

It said alternative provisions would be made for some facilities. Opposition councillors called the plans a farce.

The Ceramica pottery exhibition and the City Farm will no longer be funded with money from the authority.

Protesters thrown out

The cabinet has been "requested to discuss with any organisation or individual interested in running Tunstall Pool... the viability of further provision being made available to the users of Shelton Pool".

Two protesters were thrown out for interrupting Thursday's meeting at the council, which is run by a Labour-led coalition with the Liberal Democrats.

The authority's leader, Mohammed Pervez, said it had to make difficult decisions and insisted it had protected the most vulnerable in the city.

Opposition councillors put forward a proposal on the cut plans, saying they should be deferred because, in their view, the council had not complied with the Equalities Act 2010.

They wanted independent legal advice before any further consideration and the budget and spending proposals to be more clearly reported.

Before the meeting the council said it was "confident they were putting forward a legal budget" and that proposed amendment was out-voted at the meeting.

It recently emerged that seven children's centres in the city had been saved from closure.