WORCESTER City Council leaders last night revealed details of the sweeping cuts in jobs and services needed to balance the desperately over-stretched Guildhall budget.

City residents have been warned they must expect a significant reduction in many of their council services as council bosses slash spending by about 20 per cent over the coming year.

CCTV cameras will continue to record events but without being actively monitored by council employees, meaning they will no longer be useful as a proactive crime-fighting tool – unless police officers decide to monitor the screens themselves.

The future of the Guildhall appears to have finally been decided after years of indecision, with city leaders intending to move Worcester’s art gallery and museum into the historic building in 2012. The museum building on Foregate Street will then be sold off.

There was bad news for the elderly and disabled, who have suffered a double blow with the loss of funding for the community transport service Worcester Wheels, and the decision to no longer offer free bus travel to pensioners before 9.30am on weekdays.

Tourism services in the city have also received a major blow with the decision to cut the £180,000-a-year grant to tourism body Visit Worcester when the current agreement ends in 2012.

Council bosses hope the three-year stay of execution will give Visit Worcester – which is in charge of promoting the city and organises events such as the Victorian Fayre – time to find other sources of income.

The future of community arts centre the Worcester Arts Workshop is also in doubt after having its funding is cut.

The city hopes to generate further income by introducing a chargeable garden waste collection service, as well as by increasing cemetery and crematorium charges by a further 20 per on top of last year’s 50 per cent rise.

Savings will be sought by merging youth and community services and museums services with Worcestershire County Council, and through a reorganisation of senior managers at the city council.

And the elected councillors themselves have not escaped, with reductions in the number of cabinet members, council committees and even the mayor’s own coffers.

But it is Guildhall staff who will be hit hardest of all, with the equivalent of more than 62 full-time job losses planned during the next financial year, rising to 84 in 2010.

About 30 of these posts are already vacant and so will not involve actual redundancies, but the numbers still amount to more than 10 per cent of the entire workforce. And while many of the job losses involve backroom staff, there will also be reductions in the quality of parks and street-cleaning services provided.

There will be fewer street sweepers and chewing gum removers, fewer flower beds and hanging baskets and fewer events in city parks.

The proposals will be rubber-stamped by the city’s ruling cabinet next week, but must be agreed by the full council in February before being put into action.