AN OPEN letter to Wirral Council's chief executive says the authority is facing a 'potentially catastrophic situation' with a budget shortfall which could reach £50m this year.

Opposition group leader Steve Foulkes’s fears are outlined in his letter sent this week to interim council boss Jim Wilkie.

The letter calls on him to act now to "bring some sanity" to the situation.

The former leader of the council pointed out the town hall had lost several senior staff in the last six months, as well as more than 1,600 who have said they want to take redundancy.

In his letter to Mr Wilkie, Cllr Foulkes said: "Morale in the council is at rock bottom.

"The council's budget shortfall now stands at £33m and you and I both know that this gap could actually increase significantly when the local government settlement is announced.

"By December, we could well be facing a gap of £40m, or even, God forbid, £50m on a worst case scenario.

"This is a truly frightening and potentially catastrophic situation.

"There is very little time left and a budget set in panic will be a bad budget.

"The consultation process will not set a budget for you. Headlines will not set a budget for you. Even if every option in every Task Force paper is adopted, (options which at the moment are both ill defined and uncosted), you will not reach anything like the figure necessary by March.

"My biggest fear is that a knee jerk budget is set taking as many voluntary redundancies as possible (and a thousand jobs will yield about £20m ) without any planning or consideration for the devastation it will do to services.

Describing the current situation as “crazy”, Cllr Foulkes concludes: “Jim, it is your job to advise the politicians on what is reasonable and achievable.

"You owe it to the people of Wirral to be truthful about what can and can’t be done, and what the consequences will be.

“I am appealing to you now, before it is too late, to bring some sanity into this situation.”

Mr Wilkie said he would be seeking an early meeting with Cllr Foulkes “to discuss his concerns.”

Conservative council leader Jeff Green said his Labour counterpart was "scaremongering."