Christmas in Gravesham may not be such a wonderful time of year for much longer after thousands of pounds were slashed from the borough’s festive budget.

While this year’s programme will go ahead as planned, kicking off with next Friday’s lights switch-on, the next financial year will see the money for seasonal events start to dry up.

Government cuts mean that Gravesham council needs to find savings of £10,000 per working day by 2019, and cabinet members rubber-stamped proposals to slash funding to its events budget by more than £50,000 at a meeting on Monday night.

The community engagement budget will be hit by £56,600 and the leader’s community budget, which paid for the Christmas programme, will be scrapped.

It means that events families are looking forward to this year, such as Christmas on the Hill and the Christmas Tree Festival, will likely go or be heavily scaled back. Future years could be served solely by the lights switch-on and a Christmas market in the refurbished market hall.

Gravesham in Bloom is also set to suffer from an £18,010 reduction in a budget reserved for town centre events.

Such cuts formed part of almost £500,000 worth of savings approved by cabinet members, which had initially been set out at an earlier meeting last month and then put through the council’s scrutiny committee for feedback.

Tourism hub TownCentric in St George’s Square will be shut down at a saving of £66,310 and replaced by a tourism desk, likely in the market hall, for four days a week.

Less brochures and leaflets will be produced and bookings for trips, historic talks, walks and other attractions will mostly be managed online.

Gravesham council will cease its membership of Visit Kent and Tourism South East to save a shade over £3,000 and will withdraw its sponsorship of the Dartford and Gravesham Business Awards, saving £1,250.

Away from tourism and events, the council’s older persons and younger persons budgets, which fund schemes specifically related to the needs of people within those two groups, will both be halved to £25,000 each, and 44 council members will have their member grants halved, down to £500 each to save a total of £22,000.

Council staffing will also be affected by the savings put through on Monday. The tourism, town centre management and arts and heritage teams will be restructured, with 4.5 posts to go and a new combined team based at the civic centre. This will save the council £92,010.

“We have had to make some difficult choices. The recommendations we have made have been challenging" Council leader Cllr John Cubitt

The jobs of two gatekeepers manning King Street, who ensure the road remains accessible to emergency services while closed to general traffic, will be lost, saving £37,400. They could be replaced by electronic bollards.

Just over £50,000 will be saved by the decision to not fill a service manager position within the council’s public health department, which has been vacant and covered by other members of staff for the past two years.

Council leader Cllr John Cubitt (Con) said: “We have had to make some difficult choices, but we are trying our best to reduce the impact on our frontline services and ultimately the impact on our residents.

“There will inevitably be some changes to these services but we’re working out a way to deliver what we can, while we make the savings we have to make.

“The recommendations we have made have been challenging but, in relation to the first round of savings we think we have made suggestions which still offer a very good level of service for residents.

“There will be a continuous appraisal of the financial situation as it develops.”

The council also wants to save money on the annual fireworks display, which was another big success last weekend, with cabinet members hoping to ask for the £15,000 spend to be at least partly funded by Kent Fire and Rescue Service (KFRS).

KFRS did used to help fund the display in order to reduce the risk of fires and accidents from household bonfires and fireworks, but the cabinet has been asked to reconsider.

To ensure this first round of savings targets were reached, the cabinet members approved expectations that the council would see additional income of £15,000 from businesses seeking a new presence in the town centre.

The new market will provide a surplus of £45,564. All savings outlined at Monday’s meeting will start to be incorporated from the 2017/18 financial year after they have gone back to the scrutiny committee for comment.

Proposals to save more money on parking and amenities, revenues and benefits, planning, regeneration, customer and theatre services, and the council’s maintenance and repairs workforce, will all be considered at a later date.

An idea to rename Gravesend to Gravesend-upon-Thames will be considered separately from the spending review.

The council’s government support grants, which will be halved from £1.2 million next year, will be completely halted in April 2019.