Preparing for a hike in council tax and cutbacks (From Falmouth Packet)

Preparing for a hike in council tax and cutbacks

9:51am Wednesday 27th January 2010

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)

I cannot help thinking our Cornwall Council that no one wanted, is preparing all of us for a hike in council tax and a cut back in spending for the next few years.

News flowing out from County Hall, certainly points that way. We have been told that any suggested increase in allowances for county councillors have been put on hold for 12 months.

We have been told that serious repairs are needed to the county’s roads because of the recent cold snap and the work could cost as much as £5 million.

If the thousands of potholes that often appear in our roads are repaired correctly first time round, there would have been less work to be done now.

But we are also being told that there will be further cuts in other departments which means someone has to suffer the consequences, and public services will no doubt suffer in the coming months as money rapidly runs out.

In my book that means come next year, we either go through a further period of spending cuts leaving us even worse off than we are now, or the rat pack at County Hall come at us guns blazing, telling us we all have to cough up more cash not only to pay for services, but to pay our councillors more money and possibly the top brass as well.

Let’s face it, Unitary government in Cornwall is not all it was hyped up to be. We may have fewer councillors looking after our interests and less staff working in local government overall, but do the huge departments know what they are doing? Is our Cornwall Council a slick operator? It depends what you mean by slick. I would prefer to say slippery and read into that what you will.

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)