Opinion
Featured in various local newspapers, February 2010:
Dear Editor,‘Bath and North East Somerset is a rich area, and therefore doesn’t deserve Government funding’. This appears to be Labour MP Dan Norris’s explanation for why the Government so massively under-funds our local area.
I think this argument will astonish the vast majority of residents in the area.
Let’s look at the facts:
The Government withholds £2.5 million of grant-funding for the local area every year, despite the Government’s own calculations saying we should be entitled to it.
The Government has underfunded free bus passes in our area by £1.3 million every year.
The Government stumped up less than half the cash needed to provide free swimming, so only over-60’s benefited, not under-16s.
Then the Government expects the local council to pick up these costs, which add up to an extra 5% on our Council Tax every year.
And Labour’s answer? We are a relatively rich area so don’t need the money. This simply won’t ring true to the vast majority of local people who have had to cope with the worst recession since the second world war, and who are all too aware of the area’s of serious deprivation we have in B&NES.
The Government takes into account what it calls ‘relative need’ and an area’s deprivation when it calculates what we should be entitled to. But then it has decided to take £2.5 million away from this to give to other areas instead.
Instead of feeble excuses from our elected MPs, we expect them to fight for our local area, and get back our missing millions.
Yours faithfully,
Cllr Tim Warren (B&NES),
Cons, Mendip