THE first £30m of cuts and savings from Liverpool council’s budget were approved unanimously last night.

All 75 councillors present voted in favour of the cuts that will start to take effect in April.

The measures were largely politically uncontroversial and saw the Liberal Democrat opposition back the Labour administration and the Liberal budget options.

But deputy council leader Paul Brant warned the next £20m of cuts that will have to be delivered to plug the £50m hole in the budget will be much more painful.

Councillors spent most of the meeting arguing over why the Greens and the Lib-Dems had not joined in the joint budget setting process with Labour and the Liberals.

“There has not been a great deal of debate on the content of what we are deciding on,” Green Cllr John Coyne was left to observe.

Earlier in the night his party failed in its bid to curb council spending on next year’s Titanic Commemorations to £100,000. At present the three-day event called the Sea Odyssey is set to cost £1.5m. Council leader Joe Anderson said £1.1m had already been secured in sponsorship and he was convinced it would be “cost neutral”, and would attract 800,000 visitors.

Lib Dem leader Paula Keaveney urged the council to scrap its City Magazine and put the money into environmental projects.

She said her party had not taken part in the joint budget setting process because: “I believe it is important to have an opposition.”

Liberal Democrat Cllr Flo Clucas told the meeting she “hated the cuts, and hated the fact they are necessary.”

But she added: “These problems were created from 1997 to 2010 under Gordon Brown.”