Monmouthshire County Council’s cabinet has been asked to recommend a series of cutbacks across the council’s service areas to ensure expenditure is brought back in line with the budget.

In Operations, where there is an overspend forecast of £339,000, proposals include:

• saving £20k by not taking precautionary salting winter maintenance runs;

• saving £30k on the street lighting maintenance budget;

• saving a further £20k by cutting back on revenue maintenance budgets for highways and property to statutory requirements and emergency response only;

• saving £10k from the withdrawal of free road closures.

The officer’s report to Wednesday’s cabinet meeting said the total savings of £340,000 that had been identified were on the assumption that councillors would approve the necessary policy changes, in particular the withdrawal of free road closures which are currently provided to town councils.

The other immediate effects of cutbacks would be the reduction in pre-salting ‘from what officers might consider prudent based upon experience to being directed predominantly by weather forecasts’ - although it added that ‘some discretion must remain with the duty officer(s) to maintain road safety’.

The proposals would also mean that, other than safety work, repairs to property and highway infrastructure (including street lighting) would be delayed or postponed.

The report acknowledged that the weather plays a part in influencing the council’s spending through the remaining part of the financial year.

At this stage officers were assuming the authority would maintain a similar level of emergency response to that offered in previous years (i.e. to snow, freezing temperatures and floods) but as events developed they would refer to members (and the cabinet member in particular) to ‘ascertain levels of response’ especially when these seasonal events become prolonged.