TORY council bosses in Southampton have drawn up a hit list of more than £10m worth of cuts and savings in a bid to meet their pledge of a below inflation council tax rise next year, the Daily Echo can reveal.

A total of 116 jobs would be axed while about £1m will be raised from rises on charges for council services. Thirty-three of the posts in the firing line are already vacant.

But the budget proposals would turn the city into a pensioner's paradise with a ten per cent council tax discount for over 65s.

Conservative finance chiefs insist more than half the savings will come from "efficiencies". Children's services will take the biggest hit.

Council leader Councillor Alec Samuels, 77, said council tax would not exceed the rate of inflation, currently 3.9 per cent - an increase of about £50 on the average bill.

He said the £166m budget was based on the Conservative vision for the next three years, with jobs and economic prosperity top priority.

He pointed to investment in roads and said in real terms there was more cash for children's services and support for the elderly.

"We are trying to make a more modern, effective service for the public," he said.

The pensioner discount, an election pledge costing £1.2m, will be benefit 11,500 household of all over 65s - but elderly people would have to apply for it.

Those living alone will get 35 per cent off their council tax bill - at least £300.

Under the budget proposals special constables, part-time voluntary police officers with powers of arrest, won't have to pay council tax if they live and work in the city.

Among the controversial savings, library and some leisure centre hours will be reduced and the oral history unit will be axed along with the council's ethic minority language unit.

Funding will be also withdrawn from play services and those to tackle troublesome children as well as free swimming for thousands of under sevens.

Charges will be introduced for replacement bins and fridge/freezer collections.

Six sports pitches will be axed. Rises in car parking charges have already been set out.

The budget would also end the £106,000 paid to unions.

Unison branch leader Mike Tucker, who represents more than 3,000 of the 10,000 council staff, threatened possible industrial action and said: "It's an attempt to make both the leaders of Unison and Unite redundant.

"It's clearly a politically motivated attack by the Conservatives because we have been leading the resistance to their privatisation proposals."

Labour group leader June Bridle said the budget was an attack on community services and proposed cuts would really anger residents.

"Some of the things on the list of wholly unacceptable," she said, adding the union cuts sent the wrong message to staff.

Liberal Democrat leader Councillor Adrian Vinson said the budget amounted to "broken promises, slashed services, and dodgy discounts".

Both groups accused Tories of hypocrisy and U-turns.

Cllr Jeremy Moulton, Cabinet member for finance, said the savings were a result of a rotten deal from central Government which unfairly hit Southampton, a deprived area in the richer south.

Consultation on the draft budget, released five months early to avoid last minute horse trading, will run until February. It must be approved by deadlocked full council.

For full analysis and a list of the budget cuts, see Monday's Daily Echo.