Clashes are expected when Dundee City Council meets today to thrash out controversial cutbacks.
The council must make £3.7 million of savings to achieve a council tax freeze in 2015 and 2016.
Accountants have already identified £3.6m that can be saved through ‘streamlining’ but the remaining £935,000 package saving proposed is likely to prove controversial.
In the firing line are grants, budgets to culture groups, street cleaning and bowling greens, as well as the young mums’ unit at Menzieshill High School.
Both the Labour and Liberal Democrats groups have submitted their own budgets with alternative cuts that they believe will help protect services.
Labour has called for a cash injection to get young people into work to be included in the council’s budgets and have also demanded a halt to plans for the young mums’ unit at Menzieshill High, which would see the loss of a senior post.LIVE UPDATES:Group leader Kevin Keenan said: “We have identified monies in the proposed council budget which we think are better used to provide a fund to support a minimum of 20 Modern Apprenticeships within small businesses in our city.”
Liberal Democrat member Fraser Macpherson, who represents the West End, has also launched an 11th-hour appeal to save Victoria Park bowling green.
He said: “The council claims that these bowling greens could be better used so they intend to axe them but the council itself has failed to properly promote the greens and their availability for local people to use.
“If the council had been more proactive in advertising these bowling greens, they would have been better used.
“In the West End, we are lucky to have excellent private bowling clubs like Hillcrest and Balgay but for people unable to afford an annual subscription or residents just wanting an occasional game without a recurring subscription, council bowling greens provide that facility.
Protesters are also expected to make their voices heard at the meeting with the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition calling on campaigners to lobby for a ‘no cuts’ budget.
The group intends to stage a demonstration in the City Square at 2pm, ahead of the budget meeting at 3pm.
Jim McFarlane, TUSC candidate for Dundee West, said: “The austerity agenda of the major parties has driven local public services to breaking point.
“Councils up and down the country have meekly accepted that cuts need to be made but even councillors must now realise that there is nothing left to cut.
“A no-cuts budget, using the a combination of reserves and borrowing powers, would give time for a huge campaign of opposition to be built that could win a return of the millions stolen from Dundee by the Tory-led government since 2010.
“It’s not good enough for the SNP to simply play pass the parcel over austerity and vote through another £7m in cuts.
“They need to stand up and fight.”
A petition in opposition to the cuts has also gained more than 1,000 signatures.