Rethink plea from union

Unison's regional secretary Phil Wood said staff were extremely upset over the closure of Southbrook Rise canteen and plans to shut the one at the Civic Centre.

As part of their one-day strike, 100 workers gathered on the Civic Centre steps to lobby councillors as they arrived ahead of a full council meeting.

In a deputation to the council meeting Mr Wood said the £56,000 the council would save with the closures was a small sum compared to the overall council budget of more than £100m.

The closures were damaging and sent a negative message to all staff, he told them.

"It is a message about how Southampton City Council values all its staff," he said.

He added that closure of the canteen would result in 14 redundancies, 12 of which were "low-paid women".

Councillor Richard Williams, executive member for education said it was not just a matter of saving £56,000.

The full total was £175,000, due to a £120,000 deficit.

He said: "At a time when money is tight we have worked very hard to find other ways of dealing with this, but to no avail.

Out of 9,000 staff employed by the city council, current trading figures show that approximately 350 people use the canteen on a daily basis. This clearly demonstrates that the vast majority of employees fail to access the service".

Councillor Peter Jenks, executive member for corporate management added: "We always try to avoid making people redundant if at all possible, but spending £176,000 to provide just a small percentage of staff with meals, which amounts to a subsidy of over £2 per meal, is not a responsible way for the city council to spend public money."

* An incentive to fill gaping holes in Southampton's roads has seen 250 cracks filled by the city council's so-called pothole posse. The executive member for the environment and transport, Councillor Richard Williams, said the first scheme was so successful that a second pothole posse was due to ride out on October 1.