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Further £7m West Midlands transport cuts on the way

Another £7 million of cuts are on the way at the authority that oversees transport in the West Midlands, as councils prepare to slash their levy again.

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An aerial view of Wolverhampton

Earlier this year Centro unveiled a plan to axe 89 jobs - a quarter of its workforce - to cope with a £7m cut in the funding it gets from seven councils.

But the authorities are set to do it again in the next financial year, which starts in April, as they are all grappling with their own multi-million pound funding cuts.

The cuts mean Centro will see its funding fall from £145 million last year to £131.4m, with £138.7m having been allocated this year.

The authority is in charge of bus shelters, funding for discount fares for children and pensioners, park and ride services at rail and Metro stations and passenger information among other aspects of transport.

It also works to attract investment in the network.

The cuts will include slashing £700,000 from the budget of the ring and ride service, which offers door to door transport for elderly and disabled people if they are unable to use buses, trams and trains.

Other new cuts have yet to be revealed. Centro previously put forward plans to charge pensioners for tram and train travel and to increase children's fares but the proposals were scrapped amid protests.

Birmingham City Council, with the largest population in the West Midlands, contributes the most to Centro.

Its levy will fall from £54.4m to £51.5m from April.

Dudley's levy will drop from £15.7m to 14.8m while Sandwell's will go from £15.6m to £14.8m.

Walsall's levy will fall from £13.6m to £12.8m and Wolverhampton's from £12.6m to £11.9m

Coventry will put in £15.5m, a drop from £16.2m and Solihull will put the rest, falling from £10.4m to £9.8m.

In a report Centro chief executive Geoff Inskip said: "In response to the districts facing severe grant reductions from central government,

the Integrated Transport Authority sought to identify various ways in which savings could be made so as to achieve a 10 per cent reduction in the levy over the two-year period, 2014/15 and 2015/16. This would reduce the Levy from £145m to £131.4m."

Further cuts are also likely in subsequent years.

The report reveals finance bosses are looking at the implications of cutting the levy in increments of five per cent over three years from 2016 to 2019.

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