Caerphilly Trades Union Council press release
A potential bonfire of Caerphilly Council libraries and leisure centres, and the loss of 600 jobs – that’s what we’re facing.
Council reserves have risen from £184 million to nearly £190 million. The Labour council says a large proportion of these reserves are earmarked for ‘projects’.
Caerphilly Trades Union Council president and Caerphilly Unison secretary, Lianne Dallimore, said:
Why is it that council reserves just keep going up, year on year? Where’s the delivery of these projects?
We believe that the public has the right to a say in how those reserves are spent. Give the public the opportunity to decide whether they want to keep our libraries, leisure centres, and pools open. Whether they want to save 600 jobs. Or whether they’d rather finance these earmarked ‘projects’.
Irreplaceable
Nearly every Caerphilly Council department underspent last year. Jointly, they returned £8.2 million from their allocated budgets. So, why do we need to lose these irreplaceable resources and jobs from our communities?
Our communities deserve better than this yearly merry-go-round of service cutbacks and closures. Councillors need to start working together to save our services and get down to the Senedd (Welsh parliament) to insist on the funding we need.
We have a Labour government in Westminster now. They can’t blame the Tories anymore.
We don’t elect councillors to be accountants. What are they for, if they can’t call on the Senedd to properly fund local government? What is the Senedd for, if it can’t demand the funding so badly needed in Wales?
Victory in the fight for Blackwood Miners’ Institute shows that if the community puts up a fight, it can win. We can stop all the cuts, if there’s the will to fight for our services and our communities.
