I noted with interest the letters from Mr Gorman O’Gowan (23 January) and ‘name and address supplied’ (30 January) about the rise in the Cramlington Council Tax precept and alleging broken promises.

12 Grosvenor Close

Cramlington

01670 714731

 

Sir

I noted with interest the letters from Mr Gorman O’Gowan (23 January) and ‘name and address supplied’ (30 January) about the rise in the Cramlington Council Tax precept and alleging broken promises.

Let’s be sure of the facts here.

Last year my mail bag was overflowing with complaints from local residents in Cramlington about the poor condition of grass cutting, overgrown hedges, tree maintenance, litter and overgrown verges to footpaths. In our recent consultation on the budget the responses indicated that this was a huge concern and that things needed to improve.

Northumberland County Council, thanks to Mr Gorman O’Gowan’s own Tory led coalition government, faces £130 million cuts in spending over the next 4 years or around £259 per person per year in the county. That is a 23% cut in the budget. And we learn today that the constituencies of Tory ministers in the affluent south are seeing not cuts but increases in funding by as much as 7%! We’re clearly not all in it together in Northumberland!

In the last 4 years to 2013 the Lib Dem run County Council cut the budget which saw cuts of 500 jobs each year, resulting in a devastating impact on front line services especially grass cutting.  Whilst the Labour administration at County is now committed to protecting existing front line services as far as possible these unprecedented cuts in public services mean the County Council simply can’t provide additional resources to improve neighbourhood services that people want to see The situation is unlikely to get better any time soon. If public spending cuts continue things may indeed get worse.

And promises, our manifesto set out clearly that our priority was to improve Cramlington which sadly had been let down badly by the refusal of the previous Lib Dem Town Council to invest in Cramlington. Let’s not forget that the people of Cramlington overwhelmingly backed this manifesto commitment in the ballot box last May.

Talking of broken promises, his Tory led coalition government have over 130 broken promises the biggest of which are the creeping privatisation of our NHS and the loss of 16,000 police officers. They weren’t in the Tory manifesto.

And ‘name and address supplied’, I always worry about the motives of people who want to remain anonymous, the decision to increase the precept wasn’t made behind closed doors but democratically at full council on 15 January in which Tory members abstained and still won’t commit to supporting our plans.

And the cost! The majority of people in Cramlington will be paying around 75p a week extra. What Mr Dorman O’Gowan failed to say was that 156% increase applies to less than 900 properties in Cramlington!

We believe that people will accept that for a modest increase we’ll see a much improved Cramlington. It will create 9 new full time jobs with the possibility of apprenticeships for our young people, weekly grass cutting, much improved hedge and verge edging, minor tree maintenance, litter removal and winter maintenance services like gritting but more importantly for the first time local control over the quality and performance of the service.

Cramlington soon will not just be the largest town but is the gateway to Northumberland. Does it not deserve better services? I believe it does!  The alternative of doing nothing would see a town’s environment being much worse and unattractive. The town cannot fall short because we aren’t prepared to have the same vision as our people for a better town that looks great and makes it a place that people are proud to live in, visit and for businesses to invest in

Of course, had we not had these public spending cuts imposed on us then we would not have had to raise the council tax precept. So let’s be clear about where the blame lies – firmly with his Tory led coalition government who’ve imposed this devastation on our local services.

We are prepared to stand up for the people of Cramlington but the real question is are the Cramlington Tories and Lib Dems prepared to do so? I’m not expecting an answer any time soon as they have been remarkably quiet on this and in challenging their own government on the scandalous public spending cuts in Northumberland.

Councillor Allan Hepple

Labour Group Leader Cramlington Town Council