A petition calling on the Government to rethink the huge cuts in funding for local council services, and the way in which these cuts are unequally shared across the country, will be presented to Downing Street by Coun Alan Rhodes, leader of Nottinghamshire County Council, and MP for Ashfield, Gloria De Piero, on Monday.

The Fair Deal petition was signed by 3,222 local residents to ask the Government to think again about its approach of making the largest funding cuts in areas where deprivation is highest.

Only five county councils in the country saw a bigger reduction in ‘spending power’ than Nottinghamshire in the latest round of cuts to council funding, despite Nottinghamshire having some of the areas of highest deprivation in the country.

Despite already cutting more than £100m from its budgets and shedding 3,000 jobs since 2010, the council’s main source of Government funding, the Revenue Support Grant, is being cut by a further 21% over the next two years.

This is equivalent to a £63 cut per resident in Nottinghamshire, double that of more affluent areas in the south of England such as Buckinghamshire (£29.84 cut per person) and Surrey (£32.74 cut per person).

Coun Rhodes said: “We’ve taken some very difficult decisions to balance our budget but despite cutting back on nearly every service we provide, we still need to face a funding shortfall of £77 million over the next four years.

“And yet councils in the South East who have much lower levels of deprivation have been less hard hit by Government cutbacks. This does not make sense and I welcome the fact that so many local people have recognised how unfair this Government policy is.

“I’m looking forward to pressing our case in person with Government ministers when we hand in our petition.”

The council has recently published its draft blueprint for the future of local services. Redefining Your Council proposes wholesale changes to the way services are delivered and a modernisation of how the Council operates, to deliver the savings required in the wake of the Government’s budget cuts.

Residents are being urged to have their say by filling in the short questionnaire online at www.nottinghamshire.gov.uk/redefiningyourcouncil or by completing a paper copy, available from all local County Council libraries.

The consultation is open until Tuesday, 17th June, with a report on its findings set to be considered by Policy Committee on 2nd July.