Monday 28 January, 4pm, Culture Portfolio meeting,
5pm – Electoral Services Working Group
6pm - Labour Group meeting
Wednesday 30 January, 6pm – Full Council Meeting, Ipswich Borough Council,
Thursday 31 January, 7pm – North East Ipswich Area Committee meeting
Saturday 2 February, 10.30am – Labour campaigning in North West Ipswich
Full Council week and the issue of ‘Council tax’ will be discussed by many, the Tory Police and Crime Commissioner has set a 0% rise but only thanks to using his reserves and the County Council have also decided on 0%, but many will wonder what they will do next year when there is nothing left to get rid of/sell off – will the collapse of the deal to allow Balfour Beatty to take over Suffolk roads put a dent into their budget proposals?
With the cuts in grants being made to local authorities by the coalition government plus the uncertainty of how councils will receive housing benefit money it is hard for councils to not have to make cuts to their services, The bribes of extra grants and then the threats of having to use an expensive referendums to put council tax up leaves council with little room for movement.
Tories in opposition including in Ipswich are quick to call for 0% rise or even a cut but at the same time we had Nadia Cenci asking for the council to spend money by cancelling the contract (agreed to by the Tory/Lib Dem council) with a wind turbine firm. This would have cost every resident in Ipswich money but it seems they are happy to ask us to spend money but do not understand that this will mean having to put tax up or cut another service to pay for it!
The abysmal way the Tories and Eric Pickles are treating local authorities has even led to a number of Tory authorities to write to David Cameron and complain, counties like Essex leading the way in this protest but with Suffolk being led by the likes of Pickles ‘clone’ Colin Noble there is not much chance of Suffolk County Council rocking the boat.
The Suffolk Tory leadership – Cllrs Bee, Terry and Noble were quick to tell the public what a great job they have done and are doing and they still managed to set a 0% Council Tax but last week you would have thought the same three Cllrs must have been out of the country as they left Graham Newman to take all the flak for a second set of terrible educational results for the County.
I will leave the finals words to a Tory Suffolk MP when describing the Tory run County education service – “It is a mess”.
1 comment:
Obviously to Ipsw2ich Labour spending £88,000 on a newspaper that hardly anyone reads is better than spending money stopping a turbine development people don't want.
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