The council had previously said 1,500 jobs would be axed to cope with an expected 20 per cent cut in spending, but Coun Robert Light (Con, Birstall and Birkenshaw) predicted there would be more.

He said: "We all know that local government and all government departments are facing cutbacks of five per cent over the next four years and Kirklees is not exempt from that.

"This is over four years, not three, so this will push the number of redundancies up to 2,000."

In January, the authority announced plans to offer every non-school council worker voluntary redundancy as it tries to slash its budget.

It also plans to reduce its senior management team from 36 to 23.

But Coun Light said there was a 'fundamental problem' with the number of middle managers in the council's hierarchy and it should be posts in those tiers which were cut first.

He added that the cuts were already affecting essential services, including the highways departments and culture and leisure services.

But council leader Mehboob Khan accused Coun Light of 'scaremongering'.

He said: "Last September we took an extremely thorough look at the way the global recession was going to impact on the council's budget.

"We took the responsible and forward-thinking approach by covering a lengthy period of the next three to five years and all the signs are that our calculations were right.

He said councils all over the country were facing a similar situation, but Kirklees was making plans well in advance and hoped to avoid crisis cuts further down the line.