The total cost of the coronavirus crisis to the council’s budget will be more than £30m, the local authority has estimated. Bury Council already faced a multi-million pound funding gap in its budget which was approved in February, totalling more than £22m over four years.
But the coronavirus crisis is now expected to cost the council an extra £30m. Incoming council leader Eamonn O’Brien revealed the figures at a cabinet meeting.
He said: “This is quite clearly the biggest financial uncertainty we’ve faced in a very long time – to put it mildly. Yes, we’ve dealt with austerity and cuts for 10 years, and that’s been difficult enough. “But the biggest challenge we have here is not simply the scale of the financial cost, it’s the fact that