THE full extent of George Osborne’s additional two years of cuts is spelled out today as a council boss warns the North will find itself unable to provide the same standard of services as the South.

Durham County Council has gone through the Chancellor’s autumn statement and now predicts an additional £50m will need to be lost from its budget by 2017. Other councils are planning for similar amounts.

The move means that when rising bills and an aging population are added to the mix the council will be £171m a year worse off – a 40% reduction compared to 2010.

Last year Simon Henig, the Labour council leader, set out £123m of cuts up to 2015, bringing with it 1,950 job losses and scrapped posts. Mr Henig’s officers have now had to plan for a far worse scenario, one which the council leader says will usher in a radically different role for the council.

Mr Henig said: “We are looking at a future where we have to be thinner and leaner and our big worry is that we will be forced into a position where we are not able to deal with the needs of the people in Durham.

“And what is very obvious to me is that this is not a fair position. Why are we in a situation where a North-South divide is forced upon us?

“Why should an older person in Wokingham or Surrey be given the care they need by their local authority but an older person here face a situation where the council cannot fund the same level of care?

“I don’t understand why the Government would want to distribute the pain in this way, but that is what is happening.

“We have politicians nationally who are happy to say we need to make these moves to rescue the deficit, but they never say what the cost is at a local level. Well, this is it, services are thinned out but not in a way which is fair.”