MIDDLESBROUGH Mayor Ray Mallon launched a blistering attack on the coalition Government today for the unfair cuts to public sector budgets.

The elected Mayor of Middlesbrough said the effect of the budget reductions across the country would be felt more in poorer communities, particularly in the North-East.

He commissioned a £15,000 report by regional government specialist Professor John Tomaney, of Newcastle University, which said the cuts will impact unevenly across the country.

Areas which rely more heavily on the public sector for jobs will struggle more - and they tend to be areas with higher levels of social deprivation.

The report concluded that public services will be reduced just as the level of need for them will increase.

Mr Mallon told a news conference at the Town Hall: "These cuts are too quick, too deep and too savage.

"This Government doesn't understand what social deprivation looks like and they certainly don't know what it feels like.

"It's an open-and-shut case that Middlesbrough has been dealt a disgraceful hand.

"I am angry and very disappointed that people like David Cameron and the people around him can treat us as badly as this."

He said that, as a result of Middlesbrough's latest settlement, £50m worth of cuts must be made over four years.

"I could live with some of that, but not all of it," he said.

Then he heard that £8.9m to fight social deprivation would go too.

But he said the battle was not over, and the fight for more cash in coming years was now on.

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