TORY cuts were condemned by the opposition Labour group at a long and stormy Hyndburn Council budget meeting.
Councillor Lesley Jackson said the people of the borough deserved much better.
She added that Labour had prepared an alternative budget after taking a radical look across all the council's finances with two aims in mind - providing better services and balancing the budget.
It proposed a revenue budget of £12,190,000, which would represent an increase of 2.9 per cent in the district element of the council tax, as opposed to the Tories' five per cent.
Saving Hyndburn's doomed community wardens, refurbishing Accrington Market Hall and carrying out improvements at Oswaldtwistle Civic Theatre would all be high on the Labour agenda.
Councillor Miss Jackson said: "Our proposals not only see community wardens saved but expanded across the borough.
"We also propose that the Market Hall should not be sold off but run profitably by the council.
"And a new business improvement body for the town centre should be set up to replace the Town Centre Regeneration Board. All this can be achieved without raising council tax to high levels and without damaging frontline services."
Councillor David Myles, deputy leader of the Labour group, said: "The Tories haven't thought this through at all. There are £350,000-worth of cuts in their budget.
"They have made cuts across the board. They aren't looking at the bigger picture."
Former Labour group leader Councillor Ian Ormerod launched a scathing attack on Tory leader Peter Britcliffe.
He said: "He told us in February that the rise would be 8.2 per cent but now he's saying it will be five per cent. He always manages to pull the rabbit out of the hat at the last minute.
"He should have just come out and said it instead of trying to grab the headlines."
Advocating his own party's budget, he said: "We have a lot of good ideas but they have been thrown out. The Tory proposals are full of cuts. The way we are going we won't have a borough to run in a few years. Everything will be hived off or given to Blackburn with Darwen Council to run. I don't think we will be sitting in this council chamber in a few years."
But Tory councillors hit back at the proposals. Councillor Brian Roberts said: "It is ridiculous to think they could spend £25,000 improving the Market Hall. That wouldn't even repair the windows."
Councillor Tony Dobson added: "I certainly don't agree with the abolition of the Town Centre Regeneration Board as businesses in Accrington are not going through the best of times and this new body would not do too well."
