COUNCILLORS voted last night to approve a budget which will see council tax rise by 4.99 per cent, three tips – including Sugden End at Cross Roads – close and costs for services like parking rise.

And it is just the start of a year-long programme of cuts.

During the council’s annual budget meeting at City Hall, opposition councillors blamed the Labour leadership for years of failure, particularly when it came to children’s services.

But Labour and some councillors from other parties blamed Government for the financial situation.

Last week, the Government revealed it would grant “exceptional financial support” to Bradford and 18 other councils.

It will allow the council to hold off bankruptcy by filling its budget gaps with £220m over two years – to be funded through a mix of borrowing and the sale of properties.

However financial stability will also require around £35m worth of cuts each year for the next five years.

It meant cuts first proposed earlier this year – including the closure of Sugden End and facilities such as the Ingleborough Hall children’s activity centre in North Yorkshire – remain, despite opposition from many residents.

At the meeting, councillors were asked to vote on two options – the Labour budget or a Conservative amendment, that would keep all the household waste recycling centres, but shut every one in the district for an extra day a week, as well as scrapping a planned new leisure centre in Squire Lane, Bradford.

The Labour budget passed by 51 votes to 26, although there was surprise in the chamber when Keighley West Labour councillor Julie Lintern voted against her own party’s budget.

Council leader Cllr Susan Hinchcliffe said Government had cut over £350m from the council’s budget since 2010, adding: “After 14 years of austerity we stand here having to vote for yet more cuts.

“The Government tells us we have to be a smaller council in the future, all at a time when demand for services has never been higher.”

Referring to some of the petitions against cuts – such as one to save the Sugden End tip – Cllr Hinchcliffe thanked petitioners, but said: “We can’t afford to run all these services any more.”

Cllr Mike Pollard, finance spokesman for the Conservatives, said the council was “mired in the biggest financial crisis since local Government reorganisation over 50 years ago”.

He said his party’s budget would scrap plans for parking charges at Ilkley Lido, retain the threatened tips on the basis that every tip in the district close two days a week to save cash, and change every council-run library in the district to a “hybrid model” staffed by a mix of council employees and volunteers.

The closure of Ingleborough Hall would also be delayed under the Conservative budget.

Conservative group leader, Worth Valley councillor Rebecca Poulsen, said the support from Government “is a way forward, but we never should have allowed this to happen”.

Cllr Poulsen criticised the budget for failing to include any extra funding to deal with fly-tipping that arises from residents dumping their waste after their local tips closed. She added: “The idea that fly-tipping won’t increase is absolutely rubbish.”

Cllr Brendan Stubbs, leader of the Liberal Democrats, said: “This budget will weigh heavy on the shoulders of our residents for years to come.”

He said the increased debt from the planned borrowing would mean in future “£1 from every £12 raised through tax will be used to pay off Labour’s credit card”.

But he said it was an issue facing councils across the country, and that the Conservative Government was “neglecting its duty to fund public services” adding: “This won’t change while the Conservatives are in charge.

“This is an awful budget, but it is accompanied by Conservative Government failures.”

Cllr Matt Edwards, leader of the Greens, said: “There is no other way to describe this budget than brutal.”

Afterwards, Keighley Conservative MP Robbie Moore said: "This budget slashes vital services across our area, unleashes new costs on hardworking people and takes a sledgehammer to Keighley and Ilkley’s history, widening the ever-increasing funding imbalance between our area and Bradford city centre.

"The case to take Keighley and Ilkley out of Bradford Council control and form our own unitary authority has never been stronger. I hope that local residents, councillors and community figures of all political backgrounds will join me in this fight in the coming weeks and months.”