OPPOSITION councillors claim £24 million of cuts are being rushed through without a coherent plan.

Green councillors said the budget lacked political leadership and featured salami slices which would damage vital preventative services.

Conservative group leader Geoffrey Theobald said the Labour administration was in “disarray” with £3 million of savings still to be found.

But council leader Warren Morgan said his party was delivering on big ideas and accused opposition groups of scaremongering over cuts that were not being proposed.

The full scale of the 2017/18 cuts were revealed on Wednesday with cllr Morgan warning this would be the worst year any administration had ever faced.

Three hundred council jobs are to go over the next three years amid £51 million of savings while council tax bills could rise by six per cent.

Cllr Ollie Sykes, Green finance lead, said the ultimate responsibility lay with the Government but said Labour’s opposition while in opposition to council tax rises had deprived them of vital funds.

He added: “What we have is a very troubling budget and I am quite worried for our city.

“I don’t think it’s a very political budget, this is an officer budget, there are no big ideas here, no political leadership, it’s just salami slicing.

“I think there are parts of this budget that both opposition and Labour councillors will disagree with, I expect it will be a very different budget that comes back in February.”

Cllr Theobald said he was disappointed the minority administration had not approached him to work together on the difficult cuts process.

He said: “The Labour administration is now paying the price for blocking, with the Greens, a lot of the reforms to the council that should have been carried out five years ago.

“We are well behind the curve of other councils and Labour is having to rush through cuts to front line services without a proper coherent strategy.

“There is a worrying black hole in Labour’s budget of over £3 million, which indicates that they really are in a state of disarray.”

Cllr Morgan said Labour was a “competent and united leadership” delivering common sense solutions that was missing during four years of Green council control.

He said: “The Greens spent four years with their heads in the sand, preventing services from making a steady and sustainable transition to the community and voluntary sector or other partners.

“They salami sliced while focusing on pet projects that didn’t address the core challenges we face

“We are protecting our early years work in nurseries and children’s centres, not cutting them, we are not cutting domestic violence funding so it is irresponsible of the Greens to scare staff and service users over cuts that are not being proposed.”