East Lothian’s Labour Councillors, responding to council officials’ consultation on the council budget for the next 3 years, issued the following statement:

“We understand that the proposals set out by council officials will make worrying reading for many communities, families and employers in East Lothian. While we take our responsibility to balance the budget seriously and are committed to getting best value for every pound of local people’s money, we want to reassure people that we are doing everything we can to protect local services and jobs.

“To the Tories in Westminster we say, austerity is not working. Coupled with the uncertainty over Brexit, this is not the time to cut funding to Scotland.

“And to the SNP in Holyrood we say, East Lothian can’t take any more cuts without lasting damage to frontline services, or stopping some services altogether. Councils have had their budgets cut by £590million over the past seven years by Scottish Government. When 70% of our Councils budget comes from Government, it makes this position unsustainable.

“Our message is loud and clear – East Lothian needs fair funding to save our services.”

Support us in our campaign to Save Our Services and to end the cuts to Council funding by signing our petition at www.change.org/p/nicola-sturgeon-save-our-services-end-cuts-to-council-funding