Moody’s withdraws credit rating of Warrington council

Authority has debts of £1.8bn after years of local government funding cuts and has failed to find an auditor

Warrington council’s inability to find an auditor to sign off its accounts has led the credit rating agency Moody’s to withdraw its monitoring of the authority, amid mounting concern about the broader crisis in local government funding.

In a statement, Warrington borough council said Moody’s Investors Service was no longer providing it with a credit rating, a crucial metric used by potential lenders to assess a borrower’s creditworthiness.