IN response to a recent letter from Geoff Cooper, I must tell you that Bournemouth Council is already working closely, not only with our neighbouring authorities, but also with other public bodies and business partners.

Reluctant? Not us! We are eager to embrace ever more cross-borough projects in our need to maintain and improve services to our residents and visitors, whilst saving millions of pounds for our council tax payers.

Mr Cooper quotes the Lib-Dems on Poole Council as a reason we are not doing more.

How very strange, considering Poole’s Lib-Dem councillor Phil Eades’ recent adamant assertions in this paper that there is no way Poole would ever want to share services with Bournemouth!

Your correspondents who suggest this one-council merger have a ridiculously old fashioned view of how this local government works today.

The quoted ‘old, outdated and inefficient local government practices’ are long gone, replaced with a sleek, lean and well-oiled modern business, low on processes, high on results, pared to the bone and financially savvy.

I can understand why Mr Cooper doesn’t understand how well this is working, because we have achieved it without mass redundancies, without fanfare and fuss.

But the results speak for themselves in a thriving, thrusting, forward-looking council that is the envy of many and one that we should all be proud of.

Councillor Anne Filer, Bournemouth Council