Trafford Council only has to find £700,000 to balance its books for this year’s upcoming budget, but next year it will have to find almost £10 million.

The authority approved its draft, no cuts budget this week; leaving just a £720,000 funding gap for the 2020-21 financial year.

But the following year, 2021-22, the authority has estimated it will have to find £9.91m to repay short-term loans and make sure it breaks even.

With an overall budget of £172.02m, the council plans to save £7.658m in the next year.

To do that, council tax is expected to rise by 3.99 per cent and that hike is expected to bring in £4.58m for the authority. Two per cent of that will be used specifically to pay for adult social care services.

The council also wants to better enforce parking charges, which would bring in an estimated £144,000; something opposition members questioned.

Coun Tom Ross, cabinet member for finance, said: “There will be no increase in actual fines, more that enforcement staff can enforce more and this will widely improve the availability of car parking across the borough.”

Other money saving ideas include reducing how much the council spends on printing services (saving an estimated £80,000) and maintaining its grounds (saving £40,000).

The authority’s property investments are expected to bring in a further £4.03m.

Coun Andrew Western, Trafford Council leader, thanked council officers and cabinet members who worked on drafting the budget.

He said: “This is an arduous task every year and to be in the position of having a £700,000 funding gap is a significant improvement on recent years.”

The draft budget was approved unanimously by cabinet in a meeting that lasted less than 15 minutes.

The draft proposals will now progress to a budget scrutiny committee in December before going to full council for final approval on February 19 2020.