Cuts cuts cuts with Council Tax going up up up!

9.22.46am GMT Mon 11th Feb 2008

CUTS CUTS CUTS - That's the verdict on the latest Budget from Hampshire County Council

The Conservatives are proposing a council tax increase of double the rate of inflation but nothing can hide the fact that this is another budget of cuts.

Each year the County's share of council tax goes up, but it is not being spent on the things that matter to Hampshire residents.

Under the Conservatives we have had cuts to our buses, CAB outreach and our public libraries. Care homes have been closed and many of our roads are full of pot holes.

Its so bad that even a government minister named and shamed Hampshire as being in the top 10 worst authorities in the UK for value for money and council tax

And now this!

Yet another round of Bus Cuts totalling £673,000, more cuts to our public libraries and perhaps most frightening of all, they are slashing a £1 million (1/3) off casualty reduction for critical road safety schemes.

The Tories can find over £40m tax payers money to make-over County Offices in Winchester and spend a massive £4.5 million on self publicity, PR and spin yet they claim they cannot even find £200,000 to put in dropped kerbs for wheel chair users and elderly people.

So much for compassionate Conservatism.

Many residents in Hampshire think the Tory run County Council have got their priorities just plain wrong.

Hampshire's Liberal Democrat Group Leader Adrian Collett said "This budget is dishonest because it pretends that there will be no cuts in county council services, when the truth is there are many cuts hidden away in the small print.

"Liberal Democrat County Councillors will be fighting these damaging cuts all the way through the budget process."