Council in danger of bankruptcy after being projected to overspend by £47 MILLION

With reserves of just £34.3million, the authority faces a shortfall of nearly £13million - leaving it in what officials describe as an illegal position.

The crisis has prompted the council to seek immediate help from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

North Shropshire MP Helen Morgan highlighted how successive Governments have failed to recognise the higher costs of delivering services across large rural areas.

"Without short-term help from central Government, a Section 114 Notice is inevitable," she pleaded at the House of Commons on Thursday

"That would mean drastic cuts and decisions being taken out of local hands.

"We need urgent funding to stabilise the budget and protect vital services for residents."

Without swift intervention, the authority warns that issuing a Section 114 notice - effectively declaring bankruptcy - appears inevitable.

This would trigger drastic cuts to services and see Government-appointed commissioners take control of local decision-making.

The financial emergency was declared in September after the Liberal Democrat administration, elected in May, inherited what they described as an unworkable budget from their Conservative predecessors.

A thorough review of the council's finances revealed the true extent of the crisis, with service directors examining budgets line by line.

The authority's Section 151 officer, James Walton, who bears legal responsibility for the council's finances, has been pressing for an urgent response from Westminster.

"People keep talking about Section 114 notices and the threat of bankruptcy," he said, "External audit is also quite rightly looking at our position.

"If we were able to go to all those stakeholders and say ‘we’ve got some form of response from the Government’, that just takes a lot of the pressure away, and we can go back to the day job. But the longer we have to wait, I am asked questions."

The council's Section 151 officer has expressed frustration with the standard government timeline, which would see applications submitted in December receiving responses by February's end.

"Well, that is not really good enough for us because we're talking about in-year support and we can't really wait that long," Mr Walton explained

The in-depth financial review has uncovered mounting pressures across key services, with adult and children's social care costs spiralling beyond control.

The overspend includes savings that have been carried forward for two years but never materialised, adding to the council's woes.

Council leader Heather Kidd pointed to the loss of £10million in rural services development grant as a fundamental blow to their finances. Ms Kidd also said they received the "third lowest" spending settlement from the Labour government last year.

"The budget that we're having to work to is a Conservative budget where a third of the savings were never achievable," she told BBC Politics Midlands.

The authority has already implemented £90million in cuts over the past two years, but escalating social care demands continue to strain resources.

The political fallout has seen MPs from all parties weighing in on the crisis.

Labour MP Chris Bloore acknowledged that, while the Government had provided "one of the biggest spending settlements" to councils, the situation stemmed from local government being "stripped to the bone" under the Conservatives, with "over £20billion in local government spending power" lost.

Conservative MP Mike Wood rejected his party's responsibility as "clearly nonsense" but admitted "the government is going to need to step in because there are particular pressures on rural councils."

Reform UK's Dawn Husemann argued that authorities face mounting service obligations without corresponding funding increases.

Cabinet member for finance, Roger Evans, struck a determined tone, saying the council would "continue to do everything we can to bring our costs down" whilst delivering essential services residents need.

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