Furious Liberal Democrats have attacked savage Tory cuts which will shut down arts provider ADEC.

They claim the move to slash the grant for Arts Development East Cambridgeshire and bring the service in-house, is “short sighted and ill-thought out”.

It will also mean that Ely’s cinema will no longer be run by ADEC but handed over to the management of The Maltings. The plans would save £50,000 over the next two years.

Lib Dem Councillor, Pauline Wilson, a member of the council’s community services committee which will discuss the cuts on Thursday, said: “This is absolute madness.

“Scrapping ADEC will save the taxpayer the equivalent of less than one pence a week. But the damage that will be done to arts provision in East Cambridgeshire will far outweigh the potential savings. This is short sighted and ill-thought out by an administration which has been determined to shut down ADEC over the years.”

At the same time, the Tory-run East Cambridgeshire District Council has just advertised a lucrative £100,000 contract for Ely’s planned country park.

Cllr Wilson added: “On the one hand, the Tories are planning to spend thousands of pounds creating a new country park while on the other they can’t even manage the expenditure on what is already in place.

“Over the years ADEC has provided financial support to a wide range of events. It was set up because the previous in-house service was so ineffectual. Now we are planning to revert to a similar service and will lose the excellent team of volunteers that ADEC has built up. This cannot be allowed to happen.”

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