It’s typical of councils to cut the easy stuff.Round my way, the suits at the town hall have cut the grant to the local Britain in Bloom bid, thereby saving the grand sum of five hundred quid, about the amount they spend on maintaining the potted plants in the town hall foyer every year.The council is also slashing flower planting in the local parks, so that half the tulip beds are now full of weeds while the parks gardener is twiddling his thumbs in the depot. In the meantime there are 56 councillors costing us £1.5m, not to mention an army of overpaid managers all with free parking, pensions, sick pay, ‘training’, and plush offices with deep-pile carpets and comfy ergonomic chairs, and now even less to do ‘cos all the services have been cut.The fact is, over the last 10 years, town halls have been turned into glorified health spas with no expense spared. I, for one, do not expect to see my council making penny-pinching cuts which save sixpence ha’penny a week and annoy us while, in the meantime, the town halls are still stuffed to the gunnels with overpaid pen-pushers contributing sod-all.Get your priorities right is my view.Tell you what I’d do – send round the P45s to every manager in every department, then decide one by one which ones you want to keep, preferably hardly any.Don’t even bother trying to save five big ones on not replacing every other street lamp and other idiotic gestures…
