GOVERNMENT spending cuts have this week been heavily criticised by Okehampton councillors, as frontline services feel the strain.

Devon County Council is having to save £110-million by 2017 — £50-million in the coming financial year — due to its reduced settlement from central government. This is despite the authority having already saved £100-million over the last four years.

The savings have already seen important services such as youth provision, care homes and libraries severely affected.

In the last year, these cuts have led to the impending closure of Wardhayes Care Home, the reduction of opening hours at Okehampton Recycling Centre, seen eleven stops removed from Okehampton's mobile library service and had threatened the future of youth facility Room 13 before protests from the young people using it helped save it from closure.

Just last week the county council announced proposed cuts to many of Devon's bus services. These include the 318 Okehampton town service, the leisure and tourism service 187 from Okehampton to Gunnislake and Fare Car 12, which serves the Okehampton and Holsworthy areas.

Okehampton's town councillors on Monday evening openly criticised the Government for the continued cuts and their effects on the town and its services.

County member for the Okehampton Rural Division Kevin Ball, a Conservative, was among those to make criticisms.

He said: 'Devon County Council has already had to save £100-million in four years. Unfortunately, with those kind of savings, it's going to be painful.

'It's not nice, and I appreciate that. Last year it was care homes and youth services. If the cuts had ended there, that would have been painful enough, but the cuts continue. The county council is between a rock and a hard place.

Frontline services are starting to feel the pressure a bit.

'I don't think anyone would disagree that we need to cut the national deficit and operate in a buoyant fashion.

'But I would criticise the way the Government is cutting budgets for councils such as Devon when there is a huge disparity between spending in rural and urban areas.

'That is something Devon County Council has to deal with.

'The county council has tried to operate properly and deliver things that the community needs, while also meeting the Government spending criteria, but it looks like there will be even more cut.'

Cllr Mike Davies, chair of the Okehampton branch of the Conservatives, said: 'There have already been cutbacks to many of our services, like youth provisions and care homes.

'It concerns me of the further impact these bus cuts will have on Okehampton. It will end up that once you get in to town, you won't be able to get out again and vice versa. We'll be cut off.

'The county council has got to cut its cloth accordingly, but all these cuts to our services are just going too far.

'The Government keeps telling us the economy is getting better.

'Isn't it about time we wrote to the Government and ask them when the cuts will stop?

'All these cuts have such a drastic knock-on effect and right now it is an appalling state of affairs. We have got to lobby and fight for Okehampton. We need to take a step and say that enough is enough.'

Cllr Michael Ireland said: 'We had the recent visits of the Chancellor and the Prime Minister to the region, making promises to regenerate the region.

'There were good signs over the development of rail services to the area.

'Yet with continued cuts, it is a strange mish-mash of the proposals of national government wanting to regenerate while they enforce cuts at county level.'

Town mayor Cllr Paul Vachon said: 'At this rate, Okehampton is a doomed town.

'We need to lobby and give the Government an idea of our plight.

'If the town bus is scrapped there will then be smaller islands of isolation within the town. The latest housing developments on the far east of town will be cut off.

'It is one big funding decision that has lots of smaller effects.

'Prosperity is going to bigger towns at the expense of smaller rural towns like Okehampton.'

The town council decided to write a letter to the Prime Minister telling him of the effects the continued budgetary cuts are having on the community and the council's opposition to further cuts.

l What are your thoughts on the continued budget cuts? Email us at [email protected]">[email protected] or send a letter to the Times, The Ockment Centre, North Street, Okehampton, EX20 1AR.