A MERSEYSIDE council has warned that services could be “stopped altogether” as it pinpoints emergency savings totalling £38m.

Leisure centres, libraries, community and cultural centres are among frontline Sefton services said to be under direct threat of being axed.

While the council had already anticipated making cuts of between £53m-£58m by 2014, due to a cut in central government grants, it has emerged that £38m must now be delivered in the next financial year.

A list of proposed scale-backs is set to be presented to a crunch meeting of senior politicians on December 16, with council leader Tony Robertson warning: “There is not any part of the council that is going to be immune from savings.”

More than 1,000 jobs will in all likelihood be lost as a plethora of services are “reduced or stopped altogether”.

It is understood that all libraries and leisure centres – which will all operate under reduced hours – will be reviewed, as will community centres, parks and museums.

Road maintenance budgets will be vastly reduced, though councillors have vowed to maintain “bread and butter” services – such as street cleaning and refuse collection.