Sir - The comment made by Cllr Richard Stay about having to make ‘cuts’ in Central Bedfordshire Council’s services in your article last week – ‘Cuts on the cards to plug £1.5m cash gap’ – does not paint the full picture.
It is morally wrong to penalise the already deprived – children’s services, SEN programmes, axing free transport to education and swimming for those under the age of 16 from July 31, just as the school holidays start.
Add to this the same for the over 60s and these are miserable and harsh cuts, all of which it seems are supported by Cllr Male.
What Cllr Stay does not mention is the review of those who receive care in their homes.
As I write this the officers of Central Beds Council are hard at work to find ways of charging those who receive this important service.
Cllr Stay fails to realise that those who get this minimum payment to employ their carers are actually saving the council a small fortune.
Those who receive the same service from a care company results in the council having to pay up to three times the rate they pay the individual.
I suggest he starts with cutting the councillors’ allowances and all the extra perks they claim for.
It was pointed out recently that a Central Beds councillor can claim £17 per hour for up to 12 hours per week for the care of their family members when ‘Joe Public’ is given around £10 per hour to employ a carer. There is a public consultation regarding this issue on the council’s website.
Many councillors are employed in full-time positions or own their own companies so I do not think the loss of £11,000 basic plus breakfast, dinner, tea and petrol allowances a year, all from the public purse, would equal the hardship at what is being proposed for many of the already deprived residents of Central Bedfordshire.
Therefore he is mistaken in alleging that ‘the proposal came solely from the Local Government Boundary Committee’.
Stewartby Parish Council opposed the plan and there are no direct public transport, community or school links between the two villages which are six miles apart.
Geographically Stewartby is closer to Wilstead, Wixams, Wootton and Kempston.
A better proposal was submitted for Elstow ward to include the Cauldwell streets nearest to Abbey Middle School, in Elstow Parish, which are linked to Elstow via a footbridge.
These streets are in Abbey Middle and Elstow Lower School catchment areas and Elstow Post Office serves both communities, thus meeting LGBCE criteria.
I wrote my letter simply as chairman of trustees of Elstow Abbey Friends, as an Elstow resident and an Abbey/Elstow school governor who cares deeply about Elstow’s unique historic heritage.
Mrs Lynne Faulkner Waltham Drive, Elstow Let us state gypsy views Sir - I recently decided to oppose the planned gypsy camp in North Bedfordshire.
I received a leaflet and visited a website to obtain more information and to my astonishment it appears that if I make certain claims about gypsies to the council it is deemed as racist and the objection is excluded.
There is an example of 3,100 complaints out of 3,500 being destroyed, hence few objections.
No doubt some councils cower behind the excuse ‘its the law’ and then go home feeling good at making ‘hard’ decisions and making sure any gypsy camp is as far from their house as possible.
We all know that the days of the kindly lady selling lucky heather or pegs have long gone.
So let us be able to state the truth and get the snivelling civil servants to accept it.
I like the ones on the traffic signal pole at Harrold Bridge. These are alright to read when you are waiting but not if you are in the second or third car back.
Putting aside the fact that the borough council can be upset with you placing adverts on the roadside because it is considered a blot on the landscape or that the Highway Authority can consider them as a distraction to roadusers, there would be nothing to stop you putting up a sign for a local event but it would help if you have letters about three inches or larger for the small number of words to advertise the event.
Too much wording would be a distraction because it would take someone’s eyes off the road for too long. So short and snappy to be safe.
Therefore, on Friday and Saturday, July 9 and 10 our safety boats had to spend some eight hours trying to clear enough weed with their props, in addition to laying out the course, to allow the event to take place at all.
We used what garden tools we had to clear about a tonne of weed but do not have the professional equipment needed.
On the morning of the event all our volunteers started very early just to get things under way on time.
Considering the rowing club has to pay the Environment Agency £800 a year just to use the river, we believe it is their job to make it navigable.
The Mayor was taken down the course during the event to see the problem.
Armed with the event programme, we headed for bridge nine, but this was closed to pedestrians trying to cross from the old Park and Ride site to Mill Meadow.
The event stewards could offer no explanation other than they had been told not to allow people across and directed us towards Duck Mill.
People were still crossing the bridge in the other direction.
Having fought our way along to Duck Mill, that bridge too was closed to pedestrians. Again the event stewards at the bridge were unable to explain why the bridge was closed, other than they had been told to.
This time we were directed to the Town Bridge.
By this time there were so many people milling about, walking in different directions trying to figure out how to cross the river, that we gave up and went home.
It rather defeats the object of spending money on distributing programmes and placing advertisements in newspapers if information as fundamental as accessing the site cannot be relied upon.
Not the most positive experience of Bedford’s premier event.
To make a conscious choice to locate a ‘one-stop shop for council services’ in the historic centre of the town is sheer folly, the only possible benefit of such a convenient location (with parking privileges) being to the council officials and employees.
I cannot understand why the town’s unique heritage seems to attract so little ‘official’ support.
Few places in England can boast an historical figure of John Bunyan’s lasting international status, for instance, yet our civic leaders seem to prefer to ignore opportunities to promote Bedford’s most famous son. How short-sighted can it be, that the borough provides no financial support whatever to the volunteer- run John Bunyan Museum and Library in Mill Street? Charles Dickens spent only 18 years in Rochester, yet Medway Council misses no opportunity to promote and fund local links with the author.
The economic and cultural benefits of this enlightened attitude are clear to see in Rochester.
It’s a good day out and one that Mayor Dave Hodgson and his advisors might learn from.
It isn’t all of us taking sick leave as and when we feel like it, it is a minority who abuse the system, and that includes our managers.
When you are diligent and see colleagues and managers taking time off because they fancy it, after a while it wears you down and you start to think ‘what the heck, I might as well join them’.
It also means extra work for those of us sitting at our desk.
After all, how many of these ‘unwell people’ are smokers? That often means every hour they vanish for 15 minutes so they can have their fix. We honest workers would love to see the situation sorted as we would not have to pick up the pieces and take the abuse.
I put to Mr Hodgson that the lack of Building Schools for the Future money coming to Bedford came as no surprise and expressed dismay at the waste of public funds thrown at this fruitless cause.
I pointed out that it was time to make a firm and abiding commitment to improving and enhancing our current three-tier system, thus enabling our teaching staff to get on with the task of educating our kids.
Mr Hodgson assured me that the funds do not exist to effect any major structural change and that the current three-tier system would remain for a generation.
While his words implied that there would nevertheless be some tinkering, he gave his categorical assurance that the closure notices would be rescinded by the end of term.
