All in it together?

FOLLOWING on from West Sussex County Council’s £7m cuts to services for severely disabled people, you reported last week that the council is to cut £2m from its youth service budget. You also reported that Littlehampton Library would be closed for the whole of December, part of further cuts by the county council.

In addition, we have seen cuts to Littlehampton police, closure of the social services office in the High Street, and, of course, Littlehampton’s secondary school is now an Academy which I understand is directly funded by the government, with no cost to the county.

Further cuts have been made to bus subsidies and I suspect the road repair programme this winter will also be cut.

All of this begs the questions, what exactly are the residents of Littlehampton, with the highest council tax bills in West Sussex, now paying for? And given all these cuts, why are there still the same number of expensive managers, and council committees, especially when they have fewer responsibilities?

Arun District Council also appears to be in confusion about the cuts. Maintenance of places like Maltravers Park has been reduced and I understand other cuts to services are being considered.

At the same time, it has been announced that a senior member of staff, who has one year of service left before retirement, has been promoted to an interim director role, presumably with a decent salary increase, and, of course, an enhanced pension on retirement next year.

So are we really “all in it together”?

Mike Dunne

Maltravers Drive

Littlehampton