Following the announcement of the early retirement of Bury Council’s Chief Executive, and the need to make up to £24 million of savings over the next four years Liberal Democrat Group Leader Tim Pickstone said:

“We will be extremely sorry to lose Mark Sanders from Bury Council. Mark has been a key part of some significant progress in Bury over the last nine years and will be a great loss to the Borough.

“Even in the timing of his retirement shows leadership around the significant savings that the Council has to make over the coming years.”

On the £7 Million a year budget cuts:

“Everyone knows that significant savings need to be made across all areas of public spending after the deficit built up under the last Labour Government. Bury’s share of this will be a huge challenge”

“We believe that all parties need to work together on finding a way through these savings. We need to ask the people of Bury what they think so that the future services provided by the Council best meet what local people need and want”.

Following the decision by Bury Council, supported by all three parties to support moves to restore the Local Area Partnership Grants, Liberal Democrat Group Resource Spokesperson Councillor Richard Baum said:

“When we heard that the Local Area Partnership (LAP) Grants were to end following the grant cut by the last Labour Government we were devastated.”

“LAP Grants have provided much needed funds to improve our local area. In Prestwich, where I am a Councillor, grants have seen projects like Prestwich Festival, the Farmers Market and the Graffiti Clean Up – to lose all of this would be a disaster”.

“It is great that there is cross party support, facilitated by a Lib Dem amendment in Council, to finding a solution to restoring grants both this year and in the future”.