MORE than 400 jobs could be lost at Hampshire County Council in the latest round of cutbacks.

In total, more than 450 positions could be axed as part of £98m cuts over the next five years, with care homes at risk and street lights set to be dimmed.

The Chronicle reported last year that the service cutbacks were on the way as council leaders say they have lost 51 per cent of their grant from Government in recent years.

Council leader Roy Perry had warned that as many as 1,000 jobs may be at risk in the long term, although only 454 are listed in the plans that were approved by the cabinet yesterday.

But as the proposals - which will now go before the full council on October 22 - have been labelled as "diabolical" by opponents of the Conservative administration, who have urged them to dig deeper into £400m of reserves to prevent job losses.

The proposals, which could start to come into effect from next year but will not come into full force until 2017, include £52m of planned cuts in adult social care alone.

A report says that reducing residential care could save £15m by 2018/19 and 163 jobs could be lost overall.

Children's services could also undergo major changes with changes to social care, family support services and education, although the impact on jobs is not clear yet.

The economy, environment and transport department may also see cuts to the highways budget and public bus subsidies as well as street lights dimmed.

There could also be reductions to contributions towards the Hampshire Cultural Trust, which runs the county's museums and changes to the county's libraries and Trading Standards team.

Peter Edgar, the council's education chief, said: "This is an ongoing process and still there are ways in which we can soften the blow, but I think the most significant thing about all of this is we have had to change and become more business-like.

"Children's services is one example where we were very much a provider and we have now become much more an education business.

"We have no choice.

"If we were taking out £300m out of the budget then that must have an impact and there's no disguising that, all I can say is that we have done our very best to mitigate that with out very loyal workforce.

"If we used the reserves like the opposition keep saying there is no way we would have become one of the country's leading education authorities."

However opposition councillors have attacked the proposals, with UKIP councillor Andy Moore said: "This is horrendous. What concerns me is that they are expecting people to do.

"They will be losing staff and they will be expecting the people left at those teams to do the same job and something is going to crack. It's going to be the public who suffers.

"We should be using more of the reserves and we need to lean on the Chancellor to give us some more. This is diabolical."