SALFORD City Council has been slammed for almost doubling its borrowing in just one month.

The level of the council’s unsupported borrowing - cash that is borrowed through banks and loans and unsupported by the government, rose from £16.7m in July this year to £33.5m last month

Members of the council’s budget scrutiny committee have criticised the council for the dramatic increase, claiming it will generate around £700,000 in interest.

But the council, which usually generates a proportion of their cash through selling off council-owned property, blames its financial state on the credit crunch and the effects of the ‘global economic downturn’.

Karen Garrido, Conservative leader and member of the budget scrutiny committee, said: "In July it was £16.4m because we weren’t getting assets in.

"We convened as a scrutiny committee and we weren’t happy about this and we expected them to look at it.

"Since then the’ve borrowed another £16.884m.

"I would say it’s about £700,000 to service the interest on it and that’s going to come from revenue, it’s horrendous. I’m very worried.

"They should have managed the books properly for the last God knows how long, you can’t borrow your way out of it.

"I don’t know what they’re going to do with council tax, it will be horrendous if they carry on like this."

The increase in the council’s unsupported borrowing come after it was found it failed to collect over £7m in council tax in the last financial year.

Leader of Salford City Council, Councillor John Merry said: "The council spends a lot of time and effort planning its budget to ensure it can deliver all of its services as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible.

"The result for residents this year was that council tax raises in Salford were among the lowest in the country.

"However, the council does not live in a vacuum and is not immune from the effects of the global economic downturn.

"One specific area where the so-called credit crunch has had an impact has been in the property markets.

"With the property market moving so slowly it means we’ve had to make some adjustments in how we manage our budget, for example spreading costs over a longer period of time.

"This does not mean services will be affected or that council taxes will be going up but it does mean we will have to borrow money to make up some of the shortfall we can’t get this year from property sales.

"Everyone expects the global economy to recover - and for the property market to pick up again in the future - and I am confident that we can repay the money and the costs to borrow this will not impact on taxpayers."