Reason to vote Conservative - No.2

The Conservatives upped their portion of the Council Tax by 3.5%.  Originally the rise was 2.5%. The Government was looking to give freeze money for 1 year of £191,000. By upping the Council Tax by 3.5% the Conservatives broke the national promise of a Council Tax FREEZE for 2 years. The local Conservatives argue that without this increase they cannot get back this money later on due to the need to get an increase approved by a referendum.

Yet this is the same argument for not freezing One Leisure charges. By holding down the charges, the Council will not be able to get this money back in the future. Because the argument will be the Council cannot raise charges because it would lose custom.

In a recent Insight column in the Hunts Post, Cllr Ablewhite says the following: "We have frozen charges
in our One Leisure Centres that are enjoyed by millions of users every year that is accessible to all."

Millions of users is Council speak for the number of times the facility is used by someone. When I think of a user I feel this is one person. This would mean that millions of people from outside HDC use these Leisure Centres. Obviously they don't. A user therefore must be everytime they use a Leisure Centre they are classed as a user. Someone goes for a swim once a year they are classed as one user. Someone who goes to the gym 4 times a week over 50 week equals 200 users.

This is a blatant misuse of statistics. And the Hunts Post should have pulled him up for that.

How much could come from a price rise at One Leisure. A simple 10 pence rise for each use of a Leisure Centre would bring in £200,000. To quote Cllr Ablewhite..."All this and more for a few coppers a
week more."

All Cllr Ablewhite needed to do was up One Leisure charges by 10 pence and he would have brought in enough money to freeze the Council Tax this year. All for a few copper more. He would rather keep Leisure than save £400,000 a year by putting out to a trust.