HAMPSHIRE will need to save another £80 million by 2021, the council has announced – a year before a £140 million budget gap was due to be bridged.

Leader Roy Perry said the authority faced an “increasingly difficult balancing act” to reduce its spending.

Civic chiefs added they would need to consider future costs to meet the shortfall, which had come from “continuing demographic pressures, inflation, and government grant reductions”.

The council had already tried to save an anticipated budget shortfall of £140 million by April 2019.

Among the services hit by the cuts were social care, school crossing patrols, subsidised bus services, and community transport.

The authority is also currently consulting on saving £700,000 by cutting public transport and switching off street lights.

Cllr Perry said: “We are going to have to prepare to take some tough decisions about how to plug this projected £80 million gap.

“We now face an increasingly difficult balancing act in trying to meet residents’ needs given the backdrop of diminishing budgets and rising demands for services.”

Councillors will meet on Monday to find a way of making the savings.