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Services unsustainable

I’VE just received my council tax bill - a 10.9 per cent increase for 2017/18. As Mr Renard admitted in his column residents are paying more for less.

These increases are the result of the anti-democratic imposition of parishes on residents who did not want them.

Even if it is legal for the council to charge for services it no longer provides it is politically and morally repugnant, and it ought to be illegal.

This policy chimes well with central government’s gutting of public services. The decision to impose parishes moves away from the concept of equalisation of services across the town regardless of the poverty or wealth of individual areas.

What Mr Renard is presenting as ‘choice’ is bogus. If services are not provided by taxation at town level you can only choose what you can afford. His regime’s action will exacerbate inequalities across the town.

At the national level the Government abandoned funding linked to an assessment of needs in each area. In 2013 it ended annual assessment of local needs and wound down the revenue support grant. The move towards councils being funded by council tax and business rates will entrench regional inequalities because richer areas raise more than poorer.

For all the success of Swindon the low value of the housing stock means the town takes in less council tax than wealthier towns. As for business rates, they are falling.

Funding that is just linked to economic conditions rewards ‘success’ and punishes ‘failure’. This will deepen inequalities which are rooted in the decline of industry and the growing parasitism of the financial sector.

Mr Renard says he is abandoning other services to concentrate on social care. In reality, we are seeing decay of the town’s social and physical infrastructure.

An Age UK report shows many people who should be receiving social care are not, and many who do are receiving less than they need.

Mr Renard’s regime is responsible for this situation as it has gone along with the Government’s abandonment of service provision related to needs. We see the social consequences in increased poverty and declining services.

The six-year council tax freeze of the ruling administration guaranteed that sooner or later they would be forced to drive up council tax because their funding was running out.

Their cuts will not ensure ‘sustainable services’ but will create worse services. There is no way even services for the elderly and the young can be sustained, given the ending of central government grant. Our council should be saying so.

Even the Tory Leader of the Local Government Association has said: “Even if councils stopped filling in potholes, maintaining parks and open spaces, closed all children’s centres, libraries, museums and leisure centres, turned off every street light and shut all discretionary bus routes they will not have saved enough money to plug the gap by the end of the decade.”

The austerity programme has made matters worse and continues to drive up the national debt at the same time.

MARTIN WICKS Welcombe Avenue, Swindon

Democracy destroyed

THE Tory Government recently allowed local councils to raise their council tax bills by five per cent, far above the rate of inflation, under the guise of assisting local councils to provide funding for local social care.

Some scurrilous councils, ie Swindon Borough Council, have used this an an opportunity to not only raise council tax by more than the allowed percentage but also offset to parish councils some of the services they are committed to provide.

In essence, what will now happen is: street bin collections will now be controlled by parish councils, and at a lower rate of pay per hour than what is currently happening.

So, the current rate of pay, I believe around £10 an hour, will reduce to the minimum or living wage.

The borough council saves money on not having to provide these services and parish councils demand exorbitant rate increases.

Not only will this result in council employees being made redundant but the parish council will then have the opportunity to up-rate their contributions, which Blunsdon Parish Council has done significantly.

For example, last year the allocation of my council tax bill to Blunsdon Parish Council was £22.16, this year it is a whopping £108.97, a rise of £86.81 or 319.71 per cent.

My overall council tax has risen by 11.3 per cent, this being the only piece of honesty of this situation.

If this wasn’t bad enough, it seems the council tried to hide the significance of these rises by changing the order on the charges on this year’s statement.

This council is nothing more than a disgraceful incompetent sham and only serves to disenfranchise any semblance of faith in democracy.

D DALY Loveridge Close, Stratton, Swindon

Ballot paper suggestion

WITH the parish council elections coming up in May and the fact that these were foisted on some areas of Swindon, may I suggest that, when the election forms are printed, they have an extra line added: “None of the above.” Just a thought!

GERRY TAYLOR Newcastle Street, Swindon

Memories of teacher

I WONDER if anyone who went to Lethbridge Junior School during 1940-1945 remembers a teacher called Dorothy King?

Mrs King lived at The Grove, in Drove Road, now a Harvester Inn. Each morning she would be surrounded by a group of children who had met her and went on to school with her.

She taught music and drama and produced a play called the Wonderful Inn performed in the town hall.

Mrs King came from London to help and teach at Lethbridge Road School, when many male teachers had been called up for military service.

I also remember another teacher - Miss VMS Hood. She taught the oldest children before they left, either for Commonweal, then a grammar school, or Drove Secondary School.

MARGARET HARBER nee Higgs Callas Rise,Wanborough