TORY county chiefs have been accused of hoarding reserves which have reached an “immoral” £400m while cutting front-line services and jobs.

Liberal Democrat opposition leader Cllr Keith House criticised the ruling Cabinet for sitting on savings meant to cushion local authorities in hard times.

Figures show the county council have nearly doubled the reserves from £214m in 2011 to £419m last March while closing two libraries, three care homes and slashing spending on Sure Start children’s centres and buses.

Cllr House, who is also leader of Eastleigh Borough Council, said: “Frankly, the level of reserves is now immoral. I think they are excessive and can’t be justified for the community.”

He made a plea for the council to use the cash more imaginatively than leave it sitting in the bank. Local Government minister Eric Pickles has urged councils to spend some of their savings to head off service and job cuts.

But the council says half the money is already committed to projects such as road repairs or school building and street lighting.

The cash is held in reserves while the spending is spread over a number of years. Other reserves are earmarked for specific purposes such as settling insurance claims and schools.

But a Cabinet report admitted there was £80m available which could be used to fill the black hole left in the council budget by a 10 per cent cut in Government funding over the next two years.

It went on: “Whilst it is true to say that these reserves could be used to mitigate the loss of Government grant reductions, the county council has decided to make a more sophisticated, long-term approach to the use of these reserves…”

Council leader Roy Perry said: “It we used reserves simply to prop up by budget in the short term they would be exhausted very quickly.”

Cllr Perry said the £400m savings was equal to about £300 per head of population in Hampshire “to meet every possible contingency”. He added: “It is not a vast sum.” He argued the figure was large because Hampshire had 1.3m residents.

Tory chiefs plan instead to cut spending and use savings to modernise and transform services.

This includes earmarking a further £5m for bigger payouts to staff who take voluntary redundancy to reduce the salary bill. Some 1,700 jobs have already been shed.

Other cost-cutting proposals include closing four care homes – Nightingale Lodge in Romsey, Cranleigh Paddock in Lyndhurst, Deeside in Basingstoke and Bulmer House in Petersfield.

The local authority proposes to turn three into extra care housing schemes of individual flats with support services available on site.

The Cabinet approved cutting the budget by £86m by 2015.