Workers, students, community campaigners, the unemployed and pensioners will take to the streets of Manchester this Saturday to protest against cuts to services that the council is set to decide on next week.

Manchester City Council will hold a full meeting next Wednesday 9 March where all of the city’s councillors will vote on the Executive’s proposal for the budget for 2011/2012.

The proposals include a 26 per cent cut to Children’s Services – which funds youth centre and Sure Start – while Adult Services will see its funding cut by a fifth.

Manchester Advice, a Council-run service offering free advice in areas ranging from housing to employment law, is to be completely abolished.

Earlier in the week councillors were forced into a reversal over the proposed closure of Levenshulme Baths following a mass community campaign. However three more leisure centres may still be axed, alongside five libraries and all public toilets. The proposal envisages bin collection fortnightly instead of every week and overnight street cleaning in the city centre will end.

In all the Council expects there to be around 2,000 job losses.

A statement from Manchester Coalition Against Cuts who has organised the march says: “We are facing the biggest attack on living standards since the 1920s and it is only mobilising our communities, our unions and our workplaces can we put a halt to these cuts”.

The march will assemble at All Saint’s Park, Oxford Road, at 12 noon and there will be a rally at the Town Hall at 1.30pm.

Manchester Coalition Against Cuts is backed by numerous local trade union branches and political organisation. For more information click here: http://coalitionagainstcuts.wordpress.com/