WHY are we giving back council tax money to prop up Government?
In Stroud we have dealt with the savage effects of austerity over the last five years by carefully reducing revenue cost by over £2.5 million and reduced staff where appropriate without significantly hitting front line services.
However, the failure of the last and current Government to deal with the structural problem in our economy since the 2008 crash, has shown that their policy of austerity has failed and rather than owning up and changing course they are cutting harder and deeper.
Financially successful councils like Stroud, will rather than be rewarded, be penalised by the Government by slashing funding and then asking the good hard working citizens of Stroud to give over half a million pounds back to help Theresa May prop up the Government.
Unlike central Government, it is illegal for local authority budgets not to add up; so if we want to keep vital services, some brutal cuts will have to made.
No decisions have been made and there is still working going on to see what options there are.
But in the meantime every citizen should be writing to the PM and asking why they are having to give back council tax money to prop up her Government.
Simon Pickering
Green Party district councillor Slade Ward
Stroud
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