WHILST I agree with Alderman David Trenchard that a zero Council Tax increase is good news, we shouldn’t get too carried away. It is local election year after all!
I understand that 378 councils, just about all of the big ones, have frozen their Council Tax and 43 others reduced it.
In Bournemouth’s case the special Government grant designed for that purpose, with a one-off dip into reserves means that the problem has not gone away.
The Echo has reported big holes still in future years’ budgets. I wonder whether David and I might also agree that it would be good to see a Council approach to ‘financial difficulties’ more akin to that which a business or family might adopt.
I read of the way that eight million pounds of our money has been spent in a seemingly commercially naive way on the Waterfront building.
Great for headlines but with no plan as to what comes next. I suffer the twang of my car suspension as yet more of Bournemouth’s mushrooming road humps (why do other Councils seem to use more cost-effective electronic speed control signs?) challenge the drivers of Southbourne I see the general flood of roadworks around town, presumably to make sure the money is spent before the end of March and protect next year’s budget too?
Would anyone really spend their own money on this sort of stuff if they were really up against it?
I know it’s not easy; like Alderman Trenchard I’ve been there. The fact is that if we are going to have local government which really reflects that name in the future, there is going to have to be a massive change in the culture of the way public money is spent.
ALDERMAN DOUGLAS EYRE, Bournemouth
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