GREEN councillors have said they would not be able to support Labour’s £25 million cuts budget because it contains “profoundly unfair proposals”.

The party has said it is deeply disappointed to see the Labour administration of Brighton and Hove City Council go “so far and so fast” in implementing central Government cuts on city residents.

Councillor Ollie Sykes said his party “absolutely cannot support” proposed cuts to children's centres, youth services and adult social care.

Council leader Warren Morgan said his administration had “no option” but to carry out cuts or cede power to central Government bureaucrats to carry out instead.

Council papers detailing department cuts totalling £25 million for 2016/17 and a further £40 million of savings over the next three years were released on Thursday.

Five hundred and forty jobs are set to go from the council by 2020 with children’s centres to close, £400,000 saved in the youth services budget by creating a new trust and £6.4 million of cuts in adult services.

The Greens have criticised these specific cuts as short sighted claiming they save the council money in the long-run by preventing the need for costly crisis intervention.

Cllr Sykes, Green finance spokesman, said Labour was not elected on a mandate to make massive cuts and the council needed to have a “more genuine conversation” with city residents about how to respond to central Government cuts.

He blamed the local Labour party for opposing previous council tax rises and for wasting money in power on delaying the Valley Gardens project and dismissing chief executive Penny Thompson.

He said: “It shows massive hypocrisy that they are now asking the poorest and most vulnerable residents to shoulder a disproportionate burden of the cuts.

“As it currently stands, the Green group feel it is unlikely that we will be able to support this Labour cuts budget. "

Cllr Morgan said: “We don’t make these choices through a desire to cut these services, we are making these tough choices because the Chancellor is reducing our funding by a very, very significant amount.

“We are faced with a 30 to 40 per cent cut at least in what the council can afford to do and we have no option but to administer those cuts.”

The council leader said defying central Government cuts would mean “washing their hands of any responsibility” and handing control to Government bureaucrats if the council failed to pass a legal budget.

He said: “They won’t be decisions that local people will influence in any way at all and are likely to be far more painful than the ones we have been agonising over for the last few months.”