Published at 11:10, Thursday, 09 August 2012

SIR – After years of living off the back of cheap credit and the magic money tree under the last Labour government, it’s true that there’s now less cash to go to local authorities and other services. We all know that.

What should councillors do about it? Should we moan, blame others and tinker around the edges like the leader of Copeland Council, Coun Elaine Woodburn, did last week when responding to hostility towards potential changes to bin collections? Or should we think radically about local government in Cumbria?

I believe it’s time to make me, the other 50 councillors in Copeland, and the hundreds of others in the seven Cumbrian councils obsolete. It’s time for two councils, one for the north and one for the south.

We need to save money in local government and going to two councils will save millions for each authority, but it’s about more than that. We have an opportunity to think radically abut how councils work in Cumbria.

It’s not as if Copeland deserves to stay – under the current leadership it was rated by its own residents as the third worst in England in 2009. We talk about partnership-working, and what better way to work in partnership across the county than to amalgamate all these unnecessarily duplicated council functions? We do a bit of that already; it’s time to do a lot more.

I call on the leadership of Copeland Council to think radically about the challenges we face and get behind the drive for streamlining local government in Cumbria. I won’t be holding my breath though.

Coun Stephen HARALDSEN

Hillcrest Ward

Copeland Borough Council

SIR – In 1945 the people of Britain totally rejected the idea of having Churchill as Prime Minister. I wonder why?

Being a descendant of the Duke of Marlborough, Churchill was born into the landed gentry and attended three independent schools, Harrow being his last.

He had a brief career as a war correspondent but no experience in commerce or industry at all.

Your previous correspondent Brian Parnaby (“Where is the new Churchill?”, The Whitehaven News, August 2) condemns the present load of spivs who are running the country as having no experience in commerce or industry – but neither did Churchill.

So the thing that puzzles me is how he can condemn these spivs but praise Churchill when he and they have the exact same attributes. Seems to me that he is contradicting his own statements or as usual am I missing something?

Mr C. FARR

Buttermere Avenue

Seacliffe, Whitehaven

SIR – If I may reply to Coun Woodburn in regards to my previous letter, I apologise for laying the blame for the Mirehouse road safety “improvements” at her door.

I was under the impression that that which was in the borough boundaries was the borough’s responsibility.

I apologise also for thinking the USA trip was borough funded. I see now I was in error; but two questions spring to mind. These subjects have been mentioned by me before over the years. Why have they not been rebutted before now? And purely as a matter of interest, who did fund the trip to the USA? But again, I apologise for my accusation made in error.

However, regarding the cuts the government are making, these were caused by the profligacy and mismanagement of the previous one!

To Mr Brian Parnaby. I agree with every word you say about the state of the country, but how it will be cured I am afraid I can’t answer. Or at least I could, but the average man or woman in the street seem to have neither the common sense or will to change it. You and I, sir, come from a different era of standards, and I fear we will not see any successful change in our lifetime. As an ex-police officer, I deplore the lack of justice now prevailing.

Pat CAPSTICK

Low Moresby, Whitehaven

Published by http://www.whitehavennews.co.uk