CUTS totalling more than £4 million to social services and road maintenance are planned by Wiltshire County Council next year.

Social Services faces having to find savings of £3.1 million while environmental services, which is responsible for the county's roads, has to slash £1.6 million.

The cuts are looming as county council departments draw up their budgets for next year in the face of a below average funding settlement from the Government. The council is expecting to receive £192 million, an increase of 5.4 per cent on this year but below the national average rise of 7.4 per cent.

Among the proposals for next year are the axing of 40 placements for adults in care homes, reducing transport costs for people with learning disabilities, and not recruiting people to fill six full-time posts and one part-time post in the children and families division.

Annie Hudson, director of Wiltshire Social Services, said: "Every effort will be made to minimise the effect of cuts on clients, users and carers."

Major reductions in road services and maintenance are planned.

These include reducing winter gritting to A-class roads only, ending street lighting on minor roads, including those on housing estates and in some town centres, and scrapping the parish lengthsman scheme that helps maintain rural highways.

Wiltshire spends below the amount the Government thinks is necessary on roads now, and next year it is proposing to spend 22 per cent less.

Next year's education budget is still being worked on and officials will not know until January what the position is.

Bob Wolfson, Wiltshire's chief education officer, said the funding settlement agreed by the Government was slightly better than last year.

He said it was hoped that the education department could meet the teachers' pay increase and that it could put in the required amount of money to qualify for cash from a specific Government pot which would allow schools to spend on things such as providing extra support to struggling schools, and to buy computers.

One of the main pressures on next year's budget will be funding the rising demand for special educational needs placements.

The Wiltshire Primary Heads Forum and the Wiltshire Secondary Heads Association are urging parents to write to Estelle Morris, the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, to carry on the campaign for fair funding for Wiltshire's schools. Wiltshire is one of the lowest funded local education authorities in the country.

Anne Orme, chairman of the Wiltshire Primary Heads Forum and who is headteacher of Colerne Primary School, said it was too early to comment on next year's education budget.

But she said the campaign to get fair funding must carry on.

She said: "The Primary Heads Forum appreciates the efforts being made by officers and elected members at Wiltshire County Council to maximise the amount of money going into schools next year.

"But yet again in the coming year Wiltshire faces an uphill battle to get its fair share of funding."

The proposed budget cuts are provisional.

The county council is now lobbying the Government in a bid to get more funding for next year.

The proposed cuts could be softened by a substantial increase in council tax. The level of tax will be decided at a meeting in February, but the ruling Conservative administration is considering an increase of ten per cent.