Redbridge Council’s cabinet approved its 2019-2020 budget last night, including a raft of cuts and new taxes.

The authority is still consulting on a number of savings and innovations and the full budget still needs to be formally adopted at a full council meeting later this month.

Cuts have been made to adult social care, the leisure and culture budget and the general housing fund; new taxes include a late night levy on premises selling alcohol between midnight and 6am, while the price of a business parking permit is set to double.

Council tax has also been raised by the highest possible amount of 3.99 per cent, with one per cent of that ringfenced to pay specifically for adult social care, services that support the elderly and vulnerable adults in the borough.

But investment has been pumped into buying new council homes, maintaining existing ones, installing CCTV at sites across the borough, street cleansing and the regeneration of Ilford town centre.

The public consultation into the proposals for a late night levy is ongoing and is set to continue into June 2019.

The council has had £166 million cut from its central government funding since 2010.

Introducing the budget for cabinet approval, cabinet member for finance Cllr Kam Rai said: “There is a consistent state of austerity and that looks set to continue until at least 2023-24 and there’s no guarantee it will stop then.

“We’ve had to plug a £140 million spending gap since 2014 and will have to find £30 million worth of savings between 2020 and 2021.

“We have changed services pushing for cost avoidance, income generation and efficiency and we’re investing assessing the strong business case for each investment.

“We have managed to balance the budget with only a small number of cuts.”

Redbridge Council is one of the lowest funded councils in London and across the UK.

Cllr Jas Athwal, council leader, added: “These are testing times and we are having to think more commercially which is good. There is still a lot of work to be done, but I want to thank all of the officers for the fantastic amount of work that has already gone into balancing the budget.”