Labour and Lib Dems form Walsall Council coalition

The town's Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) could also get a reprieve under the terms of the coalition, which had been mooted since the local council elections saw both the Tories and Labour fail to secure an overall majority.

Now, after a series of meetings, an agreement has been reached between Labour and the borough's two Lib Dem councillors, enabling Labour leader Sean Coughlan to form a minority administration.

• MORE: Full Walsall Council election results ward by ward

Beechdale, Blakenall, New Invention, Rushall, South Walsall, Walsall Wood and Pleck libraries will all be kept open under the new council.

Meanwhile funding for smaller organisations such as scout groups and over-50s clubs could also be preserved, with both parties agreeing to look at ways they can increase usage of the voluntary sector.

Council tax will still rise by the 3.99 per cent agreed under the previous Tory coalition, while £29 million of savings still need to be found during this financial year.

Lib Dem leader Councillor Ian Shires, said: "As a Democrat and a Federalist I welcome this opportunity for our two left of centre parties to work together with the people of our borough to change our council from one which in recent years has increasingly turned its back on its people to one which includes and involves its people in the decisions it has to make."

It comes less than a year after the Tories took control of the council despite having two fewer seats than Labour.

On that occasion a month of negotiations led to Conservative leader Mike Bird forming a coalition with support from three UKIP and two independent councillors.

Earlier this year the Lib Dems joined forces with Labour to fight the Conservatives' proposed budget, with the measures they put forward now set to be brought into practice.

Mr Shires added: "Increasingly over the past two years our parties had worked more and more together, culminating in us coming together at the February budget meeting to defeat the Tory budget cuts in favour of a composite Lib Dem/Labour alternative.

"This saved, amongst other things, the seven libraries under threat of closure by the Tories and reinstated much of the cuts in funding to Walsall CAB.

"We now have a two year window of opportunity to clean up the borough and tackle the ever present inequality which leads to so much division and waste of potential."