North-South divide over Government cuts

Whatever negative thoughts you may harbour about the squabbling Pendle Council, you can only admire the way they have coped with the draconian budget cuts imposed by this “we love the rich” government.
By The Newsroom
Published 23rd Oct 2013, 07:02 BST
Money. Photo: Rui Vieira/PA WireMoney. Photo: Rui Vieira/PA Wire
Money. Photo: Rui Vieira/PA Wire

Of course, Pendle has had to make cuts. But probably helped by some extremely decisive financial housekeeping in the past, the necessary pruning of services has not been as swingeing as might have been initially feared.

Budget cuts between 2010 and 2013 are estimated at a severe 34.7%. That puts Pendle second out of 331 local authorities to fall foul of the coalition hit list.

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Only Chesterfield – 35.3% - tops Pendle in the knife of a thousand cuts.

Among local authorities being forced to make cuts of under 15% are Basingstoke and Deane, Buckinghamshire, Hampshire, Maidstone, Richmond-upon-Thames, Surrey, West Sussex, Windsor and Maidenhead, Wokingham, Dorset, Poole and Central Bedfordshire.

One doesn’t need to have matriculated in geography to find the common factor in the names – they are all firmly bedded in the southern part of the north-south divide.

As we are all in this together, it may be nothing but a mere coincidence – or not!

ERIC GREENWOOD

Beaufort Street, Nelson

Related topics:Pendle CouncilPendleChesterfieldBuckinghamshireNelson