South Lakeland's Citizens Advice Bureaux have issued a direct plea to district councillors to increase their funding or see serious service cuts.

Local CAB operations manager Jeremy Such said he had written to every South Lakeland District Council member pressing them to restore their annual grant to £90,000.

"We are looking at a deficit of over £20,000 in the coming year and this can be traced back to the 20 per cent reduction in funding (from SLDC) in April 2002. We have striven to protect clients from the impact of the cutback but will be unable to do so for much longer."

Mr Such said they had been hopeful of getting the extra funding so had not worked out exactly where the axe would fall should the money not be forthcoming.

But he warned that it would mean cuts in services and possibly the closure of one or more of its six offices in South Lakeland which include bases at Ulverston, Kendal, Coniston, Windermere, Ambleside and Grange-over-Sands.

Regional CABs are independent charities and do not receive core funding from the Government. Instead they rely on public grants and charitable trusts to pay for specific services while their basic funding for maintaining offices and staff comes from local authorities.

Mr Such explained the CAB had received £300,000 in lottery funding to pay for moving offices in Ulverston but that grant had now expired while its reserves had been used, up meaning it was now really feeling the pinch from SLDC's grant cut.

The state of its finances had prompted an appeal to the district council's cabinet to approve more funds, but its bid was not recommended prompting the CAB's letter campaign to councillors who will set the 2004/5 council tax on Tuesday.

Mr Such said: "There's obviously an understandable pressure on SLDC to keep council tax rises down but I think the service we supply is vital. It's the last and only resort for very many people in all sorts of crises and difficulties.

"It's just excellent value for money for the council. Not only do they get a service which is open 70 plus hours a week, with offices across the district, but it is chiefly staffed by volunteers who are free.

"They also get an organisation which is bringing hundreds of thousands of pounds into the district for services to their constituents like the £200,000 from Northern Rock we were given to help people affected by foot-and-mouth."

SLDC finance director Jack Jones said: "There is a view at cabinet that we did look at CAB funding in 2001 and set a new base level and we would stick to that. In addition we have done some consultation with the public over council tax and there was no burning desire from the public to put more money into the CAB."