Sheffield activists step up attack on council cuts

Unions and community organisations have launched a series of demonstrations for the next couple of weeks against the council cuts - on top of the £140m already slashed - which would leave Sheffield without vital services for vulnerable people, including children's centres, libraries, leisure centres and sports facilities as well as the axing of funding to community groups and voluntary-service providers and cuts to council tax benefits.

Council leader Julie Dore said the cuts would be "the end of the council as we know it" - a scenario mirrored in Britain's biggest industrial cities, where the Tory-Lib Dem axe is hitting hardest with councils warning that vital services to the country's worst-off now face decimation.

A demonstration against the early years cuts is planned for Saturday, with protesters assembling at 11am in Devonshire Green.

The campaigners had a target of getting 5,000 signatures for a petition against the cuts - the number needed to trigger a council debate - but public support is so widespread that they have already achieved double that number and signatures are still being gathered.

And activists from across the city will lobby and picket a Sheffield Council meeting next Wednesday where the massive cuts to services will be announced. Protesters are urged to gather at City Hall at 1.30pm.

One campaigner said: "One especially savage cut is the £3.6m cut to early years. We are fighting to save 20 nurseries in Sheffield's poorest communities from closure maintaining the vital services our communities rely on."