CUT-PRICE mortgages, more support for businesses and sharing staff with other authorities will come to Colchester if the Tories win power, its leaders have vowed.

The town’s Conservatives, who hold 27 of Colchester Council’s 60 seats, are drawing up a radical manifesto which includes a so-called Bank of Colchester.

They claim the Lib Dem, Labour and independent administration is not doing enough to tackle the financial problems faced by taxpayers and local authorities during the recession.

Colchester’s Conservative leader, Kevin Bentley, said alternatives to slashing budgets, such as a decision this year to spend less on horticulture maintenance, were needed.

He added: “The lack of flowers and ripping up shrubs may save a few bob, but it makes everyone unhappy.

“What alarms us is this administration is not making enough provision to make these savings in order to meet the constraints that are coming up.

“We’re looking at ways we can save, not just for the next 12 months, but for the next five or six years, which does not impact on residents in any way at all.”

The solutions include: * Setting up a financial organisation to offer first-time buyers mortgages with low interest rates, producing an income to the council through interest * Taking 10 per cent of the business rates paid to central Government and spending it on helping Colchester’s industries, stimulating business and producing an increased income through business rates * Forming partnerships with other authorities to save on staff costs * Giving more money to parish councils and residents’ associations to spend as they see fit, saving administration costs * Increasing talks between the council, housing associations and developers to build social housing on brownfield sites.

Dennis Willetts, the Conservatives’ deputy leader, said a combination of the recession, cuts in Government funding and falling revenues left funding in a poor state.

He added: “All these factors coming together suggest to me there’s a very tight squeeze on the council’s budget.”