BOLTON Council could axe up to 500 jobs as it looks to slash £43 million from its budget.

Community groups will be asked to pitch in with environmental and youth work — however grass cutting and street cleaning will be protected under the latest cuts which will be applied between 2015 to 2017.

Council chiefs are also preparing to reduce the amount of "face-to-face contact" between town hall staff and taxpayers.

Council leader Cllr Cliff Morris said: "These further cutbacks mean some really tough choices will need to be made.

"This will be difficult as it comes on top of millions of pounds of savings made over the past four years.

“These cutbacks are due to a continuing reduction in the total amount of government grant the council receives and unavoidable cost increases due to inflation, waste disposal and transport cost increases, as well as increased demand for children’s and adult services."

Cuts will come from across the cash-strapped council in a spending review described as “one of the toughest ever undertaken".

The authority has already slashed its budget by £100 million between 2010 and 2014, with the loss of 1,350 jobs.

Children’s social care services will be protected from budget reductions.

Proposals put forward by the Labour group will be examined on Monday before going to public and staff consultation.

Plans include:

- saving £1.2 million by closing four of the council’s town centre buildings — The Wellsprings Civic Centre, Paderborn House, Le Mans Crescent and Howell Croft — and moving staff into the refurbished Town Hall

- centralising administration roles in the council

- reducing the amount of face-to-face contact between council staff and the public to encourage more people to access council services over the internet or telephone

- depending more on community groups and volunteers to carry out environmental and youth services work

- sharing services with other councils to reduce the cost of employment

Cllr Morris added: "Each department has outlined detailed proposals for carrying out these budget reductions but due to legal responsibilities, for adult and children’s social care and the council’s priority to ensure that these services are least affected, the savings targets for these services will be a significantly smaller proportion of their overall budgets in comparison to other departments.

“We will also be protecting green space provision like grass cutting and street cleansing because they’ve already taken a big hit.”

There are currently 100 vacant posts which will not be filled — and the council hopes to take care of the remaining job losses through voluntary redundancies.

Built into the budget is an assumed rise in council tax by two per cent — the highest the authority can raise the bill before being forced to hold a referendum — but council leaders stressed this has not yet been decided.

The council is waiting to hear the details of a government offer to freeze council tax — which it turned down last year — and the decision on any proposed rise will be voted on at the full council budget meeting in February.

Opposition groups and the unions were informed of the proposals on Wednesday — and council leader Cllr Cliff Morris said the local authority faced an unprecedented challenge.

Town hall chiefs have also admitted there will be a “significant use of one-off reserves” to balance the budgets in 2015/16 and 2016/17.

In total there will be a 10 per cent reduction in children’s and adults services, and about a 20 per cent reduction across all others including the chief executive’s office, environment, corporate, development and regeneration.

The council has set aside £500,000 within next year’s budget for a community engagement pilot scheme to work with community groups, voluntary organisations and businesses to co-ordinate volunteers and offer services previously done by the authority.

Cllr Morris added: “We will be also mitigating the impact of these reductions on staff wherever possible by allowing employees to take early retirement or voluntary severance, and offering a comprehensive redeployment period for those who face redundancy.

“Throughout the consultation period, we are keen to hear the views of local people.”

A public consultation survey will be put online and also posted to 10,000 households across Bolton over the next few months.