Cash-strapped Kirklees Council will have to cut millions more from its budget.

The council has been told it will get £50m less per year for the next four years from the Chancellor.

The huge reduction means about £81m of savings will need to be found in the coming years, putting more vital frontline services under threat.

The reduced allocation from government is worse than council chiefs feared.

In September finance chiefs said they had prepared for about £59m in cuts until 2018/19 but admitted there was a shortage of about £7m for next year.

But the news from the Treasury on Thursday was that an extra £22m was required.

The council has already slashed £83m from its budgets over the past few years, causing councillors to scale back libraries, refuse collections, road maintenance, museums and grass cutting.

Hundreds of jobs have been shed in the process.

The total cuts since the beginning of austerity will now top £160m.

Tens of millions of reserves have already been allocated to mitigate the cuts with the pot predicted to run dry by 2019.

A top councillor has hit out at the news and warned that talk of the Northern Powerhouse is not being backed up with resources.

Clr Graham Turner, cabinet member for resources and community safety

“We did not expect the Chancellor to be kind to us,” said Clr Graham Turner.

“The attack on northern councils continues, once again we are taking more of a budget cut than other more wealthy southern authorities.

“It’s no longer a Northern Powerhouse but a ‘northern poor house’ that the Chancellor is creating.

“Kirklees and many other councils have delivered huge savings for the government while still delivering services to our most vulnerable residents.

“This task is made no easier by the details of this announcement.

“We will have to now work carefully through the implications of taking a further hit in funding.”

The Examiner revealed in October that Kirklees was already one of the lowest spending big councils in the country.

Data from the Audit Commission, the spending watchdog, showed Kirklees Council’s spend per head was lower than the majority of metropolitan councils – shocking £1,132 less per person than Knowsley Metropolitan Council in Merseyside.

Kirklees Council’s finance chief, David Smith, said: “On the Government’s headline figures Kirklees has come out worse than the national average.

“Our cut is 2.5% compared to the England average of 0.5%.

“The difference is equivalent to the annual budget of the whole library service.

“The main revenue support grant will fall by over £50 million per annum up to 2019/2020 – equivalent to 18% of our annual budget.

“Cumulatively the council’s main grant will be cut by a total of £141 million over the next four years.

“We will be now looking in detail at the announcement and will be preparing a report for Cabinet on February 2, 2016.”

A full meeting of Kirklees Councillors will be held in January to discuss the cuts prior to the budget setting in February.