No easy route for Barnet residents (From Times Series)

No easy route for Barnet residents

10:32am Friday 29th January 2010 in

• Skip social links
• Print
• Email
• Comments(0)

When the ‘easyCouncil’ concept was launched by Barnet’s Conservative administration, the only concrete proposal to emerge was for an extra charge to fast-track planning applications.

This has now been abandoned in the face of legal difficulties. Barnet residents may now be concluding that the whole ‘easy’ exercise was nothing more than a public relations exercise. It will always resonate with voters if a council announces it is serious about cost-cutting, thus paving the way to a popular reduction in council tax.

I am in no doubt that despite the ‘easyCouncil’ idea apparently going nowhere, Barnet’s Conservatives remain committed to cutting services. But they do not want to draw too much more attention to their long-term plans in an election year.

What the Tories are planning in Barnet is a warning of what would follow in other areas if the Conservatives were to come to power nationally.

The problem for the ‘easyCouncil’ is that it just isn’t easy at all for people.

Real and meaningful cuts inevitably mean pain for someone. The plan to remove wardens from sheltered accommodation has revealed the callousness which a radical programme of cuts would mean.

It could be your elderly relative who suffers, your child’s school that doesn’t get repaired, your day centre that closes, your street that doesn’t get gritted or potholes filled (and there are plenty of those needing to be done).

Anyone believing the main parties are now very similar should reflect on the differences between them when it comes to their commitment to essential public services. The route that Barnet Council is going down will ultimately have a negative impact on all residents, not least because a demoralised and unappreciated workforce is hardly going to give its best. Barnet might now be more appropriately dubbed the ‘uneasyCouncil’.

Damien Welfare, Labour prospective parliamentary candidate, Chipping Barnet