Wiltshire Council had to make some difficult decisions when creating proposals to slash its 2014/15 budget by £25 million, leader Jane Scott said today.

The council’s cabinet, during a meeting held at County Hall, approved the plans which will be voted on by councillors at a full council meeting, taking place on Tuesday, February 25.

If accepted, amongst some of the planned changes, the council will reduce funding for bus services they deem not to be efficient, bring family information services in-house and withdraw 5p per mile support funding to the region’s Link bus services, although the groups will still be entitled to apply for grants.

Coun Scott said: “This has not been a very easy budget but there were two things we wanted to ensure.

"The first was that we protected frontline services as much as possible and the second was that we wanted to keep the council tax down as we know people are struggling.”

The proposals will see Wiltshire Council’s element of the council tax being frozen.

The budget will also see around £18m invested in improving some of their other services. These include investing an extra £10m in highways schemes, £1.3m in health provisions and giving staff a one per cent pay rise.

To see the budget proposals in full visit www.wiltshire.gov.uk