Letter - Evening Advertiser 03/09/03

IT was with ever increasing astonishment that I read Coun Barrie Thompson's letter in Thursday's Evening Advertiser concerning Coun David Renard's letter regarding Homezones.

A single Homezone of quite modest area will cost the council some £500,000 (nearly one per cent on the council rates).

Yet as a council we are unable to fund everyone who is judged to be eligible for a care package, we pay private residential homes so poorly that they have been closing year after year and we have had to make some teachers redundant because we cannot afford to employ them.

These are but a few of the pressures on the council's budget, there are many more.

It is seemingly not sufficient that the Labour Party in Swindon have increased Council Tax by over 32 per cent in the past two years, despite the fact that state pensions have only increased by a fraction of that in the same period, and there will be very few wage earners whose pay has been increased by 32 per cent in the past two years either.

How trying to reduce Council Tax can be termed greed is difficult to know. It is even more difficult to understand why Conservative concerns to reduce the rates and at the same time try to address the run down state of many school buildings as well as fund care packages for some of the most vulnerable members of our community should be termed self-interest.

Under a Labour Chancellor the rate support grant received by this council is the lowest in the southwest and among the 40 lowest in the UK.

Like many other councils, Swindon is spending some 20 per cent more than central government's allocation for social services but is still short of funds, while in education, despite class sizes of 30, we have had to make some teachers redundant.

I would suggest that if anyone is greedy, it is Coun Thompson, who wants to have the non-essentials whatever the cost to the Council Tax payer and no matter how many essential and needy services go short of finance as a result.

This is of course, in line with Labour's philosophy of spend, spend, spend, without thought of where the money comes from.

Councillor Owen Lister

Abbey Meads Ward