A £1.9 MILLION 'black hole' is being forecast at Worcester City Council - with more cuts on the way.

The city's Labour leadership has produced a fresh five-year financial blueprint warning of tough times ahead as it battles to balance the books.

Under its forecasts, which are largely based around assumptions on Government funding and the economy:

- The council expects to deliver a balanced budget "for the next three years" before a gap opens up

- By the 2021/22 financial year a gap of £1.95 million will open up unless fresh ideas come forward

- New ideas for either boosting income or making cuts will be revealed by December, aimed at helping reduce that shortfall to £600,000

- The Government's main funding pot, the Revenue Support Grant, will end entirely by April 2019

The findings are contained in a revised dossier called the Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP) which will run from 2017-2022.

It has been published in draft form, and will go to the Labour cabinet for discussion this Tuesday.

The budget shortfall for 2017/18 is only forecast to be £25,000 for 2017/18 but that is expected to rise to £1.3 million within three years before reaching £1.95 million by 2022 without new savings ideas coming forward.

Labour Councillor Adrian Gregson, the leader, said: "The key message we've got is, in order to get into the position we want, we need to transform the way this council works.

"Fundamentally, that issue has been there for a long time and successive Tory administrations have failed to address this."

But Councillor Marc Bayliss, leader of the opposition Conservative group, said: "This is typical of the mismanagement we've seen since Labour took over, it's been spend, spend spend.

"They are very good at spending money but have very little in the way of ideas to balance the books, the people of Worcester will pay the price."

The plan also reveals how the council will update its capital spending programme, including £295,000 towards a revamp of The Commandery, £40,000 on public art for St John's and create a £1.2 million fund for land and building maintenance.

See the draft plan for yourself HERE.