Letter regarding the cutting of local services, including loss of train stations, threat to Kerbside, etc. Full text below the fold:
Dear Editor
What’s going on? Local services seem to be under threat like never before. First, there’s the post office closures, eleven all told across Calderdale, and none of them welcome judging by recent letters to your paper. Then there’s Northern Rail’s proposals to cut train services at several stations along the Calder Vale line – Sowerby Bridge, Mytholmroyd and Walsden to be precise, all meeting with cries of protest from local people. And then last Thursday we saw the demonstration outside Halifax Town Hall on behalf of Kerbside, our much valued, locally run and socially responsible recycling service, threatened with closure because “the big boys” from Sita are moving in on behalf of Calderdale Council. And as if this wasn’t evidence enough of the threat to local services, in Todmorden the PCT is allowing two village surgeries to close forcing local people to travel much further to see a GP.
All these decisions smack of big brother centralisation and control. Each authority is quick to put forward its “rationale” for change. They all boast of having undertaken the required “consultation” but local people are left wondering why, if the decisions are so sensible, nobody is happy about them? I say, if we are going to improve our public services, we need to move to greater decentralisation. More of a local say. New Labour’s ten year experiment in central control has patently failed to deliver the real changes we want to see.
Even David Miliband, writing in the national press last week, had to admit to his own government’s failure. “With hindsight … we should have devolved more power away from Whitehall and Westminster” he said. Yes, I agree David, and as a result we are all going in the wrong direction, a direction that is less fair, less sustainable and certainly not what people want. Thanks New Labour!
Hilary Myers
