The Conservative Alternative Part Deux

In the ever excellent News and Crier there a couple of letters from the Conservatives Town Councillors. One is from Leader of the Opposition, Jennifer Bird and one from Barry Chapman.

The first letter is from Jennifer Bird. Having read through this I would like to know the following:

• Does her stance on the so-called bodge-up job of the Eaton Socon Church Car Park mean that a future Conservative run Town Council would use Taxpayers money for a church car park?
• You say unexpected items of obviously occurs. So how much would you put by as a contingency?
• Income from letting of the ECC is an estimate. What is your estimate?
• The Priory Centre gets a subsidy. In the budget just passed this subsidy was increased by £11.5k. Contrary to your letter, the Priory Centre in 2008/09 under shot its budget by £85,000. With this undershooting do you still feel this budget is not enough?

Lastly, I disagree with your statement that the Liberal Democrats have made the decision to close the public toilets. These facilities are owned and run by HDC and it is HDC which decided to end this service. All Jennifer Bird is doing is defending her Conservative Party colleagues decision on HDC to try and introduce a Conservative Stealth Tax on St Neots.

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Onwards with Cllr Barry Chapman and his letter.

With Barry's letter I have some sympathy and agree with some of what he is saying. Where I differ is over the new residents in the annexed areas for 1/4/10. The residents in the area annexed from Eynesbury Hardwicke Parish had every right to get their Parish Council to provide these facilities. Their Parish Council didn't. The residents paid zero in the parish portion of their Council tax. The SNTC average was £87.55. I feel it is wrong for the hard pressed SNTC taxpayer to pick up this tab for these residents. Apparently, Cllr Barry Chapman does thinks this is alright.

If Cllr Chapman wants more information on what EHPC didn't do he should contact his colleagues, Cllr Ursell and Cllr C. Hutton. Bob Barnes (letter in about Church Car Park) was Chairman of EHPC. He should be a good source of information.

Where I feel Cllr Chapman missed his attack is on Cllrs Giles and Thorpe 2008/09 casino budget. The reason SNTC is having to raid the windfall is the mess these two made of the finances of SNTC during their reign. The public toilets closure is clearly a Conservative HDC decision. The Church car park is again a waste of taxpayer's money and should be paid by the church.

In my opinion this budget is a fair reflection of the running costs of SNTC. I feel it is deficient in not having a capital budget which will cause problems in the future. I feel the Conservatives have not come up with a clear alternative to this budget.