Last week the Globe invited Tory group leader Ian Lewis to write an opinion piece on the impending demolition of the Lyndale special school in Eastham.

This week our guest columnist is Phil Davies, leader of the council and Labour group chief.

"WIRRAL is a fantastic place to live.

We are blessed with some of the region’s best parks, gardens and beaches.

We have great schools and colleges, winning awards and recognition on a national level.

Our neighbourhoods and communities are voted the best and most desirable places to live with deserved regularity.

We have successful businesses employing thousands of residents and winning new orders to export goods made and manufactured in Wirral all around the world.

We have even been voted the happiest place to live in a national property website poll.

But as well as these wonderful accolades, there are some serious challenges Wirral must face up to.

We have an unacceptable health and life expectancy gap between our wealthiest communities and our most deprived.

With an ageing population, we have to provide high quality care for our residents in their most vulnerable years, and we have to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour by just a small minority but which impacts all our communities.

We rely on other public services and residents groups to help us tackle these challenges but with government austerity cuts to their budgets, losing thousands of police officers, firefighters, teachers, doctors and nurses is only making our job more difficult.

As your council we have to make tough choices.

Our budget too is being slashed by cuts from central government, Wirral residents have nearly £250m less to support their services and, while we continue to protest for a fairer deal, we have to take action now to meet your needs.

We have made savings from our management costs of nearly £5m in recent years, and another £750,000 from senior management costs will be saved this year.

We have reluctantly had to look at some new charges and fees for some services, and, quite rightly, we are collecting fines from people who don’t respect our environment or control their dogs.

With less money than before to meet the growing demands for our services and support, the Government has said residents will have to fund the gap.

In addition to a council tax increase of 2.99%, the Government also passed the responsibility for funding elderly and social care back to residents, asking councils to collect a further 3% in the form of a care tax.

And with the police and fire services being told to fund their needs from local residents instead of from central government, further precepts or charges were made on local residents.

Wirral residents, like those across the rest of the country, have had enough of Tory cuts to the services they care about.

They are joining us in saying Enough is Enough and don’t believe it is fair for the Government to tell local residents in need, 'if you want the services, you pay for them.'

The Tories have even announced plans to completely end central government's revenue support grant funding for local services from 2020/21 - a real threat to the long term sustainability of key services.

For Wirral residents, only Labour stands as a last line of defence against Tory cuts.

This election is about protecting the services Wirral residents value.

Others will say it is about local newspapers or consultants or agency staff, but on May 3 Wirral residents have a simple stark choice - back Labour's defence of key services including the police and fire and the NHS, or risk losing them forever to the Tory privatisation and 'pay more, get less' plan."