Councillors should hold public vote

Mar 4 2009 by Lorna Hughes, Birkenhead News

GIVEN the nearly unanimous opposition to Wirral Council’s Strategic Asset Review, is it not time for the ruling Labour and Liberal Democrat group to recognise the unprecedented ‘ground swell’ of public feeling and bow to an equally unprecedented call for a referendum to decide the issue?

Council leader Steve Foulkes must be reeling, if not punch drunk, from the drubbing that he has suffered at the hands of so many thousands of critics right across the social and political spectrum of the Wirral Peninsula.

The people of the Wirral have not only lost confidence but also all trust in their elected representatives at the Wallasey Town Hall.

Let all those voices in the ruling group now resign their seats and in seeking re-election, commend their trust to the judgement of the electorate of the Wirral and let us have a mass by-election.

Not one of them can, with hand on heart, argue that they were elected with a mandate to execute a programme which, on any view, will leave Wirral a cultural desert for decades to come.

DAVID KIRWAN,

Independent councillor

Save our trees

HAS anyone else noticed that council workmen have been felling roadside trees around the borough for the last couple of months?

Small trees, large trees, none seems to be safe.

Have our trees been identified as posing some previously hidden threats?

I notice that no new saplings are being planted as replacements.

DAVE EDWARDS,

Pensby

Library is open

Despite all the articles in the Wirral News, people in Birkenhead still think Birkenhead Central Library is closed.

I went into the post office in Birkenhead and they were convinced that the library was shut. If they think it is closed, how many other people are not aware?

To get the facts correct, the library was only closed for two weeks last year and while the roof was being repaired there was always a service.

The council is planning to close 11 libraries but they are not shut yet.

Birkenhead is not one of those in this group but it will be if people do not use the extensive services it provides.

I wondered if you could correct this misapprehension?

JAN PEDDIE,

Prenton

Don’t bank on it

I READ in your newspaper that Wirral Council is contemplating the establishment of a council-run municipal bank and rushed to the calendar to ensure that it was not April 1.

This hapless council and its executives could not set up and run an office tea fund efficiently.

Wirral Council tax payers are yet again facing an above-inflation council tax increase.

The average rise across England is 3%. We are faced with an increase which, as in past years, probably deliberately, is slightly below the government’s capping figure.

Much of the council tax money is badly spent. For example, the council boasts on its website that it has in post a “corporate equality and diversity co-ordinator” who is supported by the “Corporate Equality Watch Team” and “Corporate Equality Lead Officers”.

I can only speculate how much this politically correct claptrap costs.

This appalling council sacks school crossing patrols, closes libraries and leisure centres, fails to keep our streets clean but equality and diversity is safe in their hands!

CHARLES NUNN,

Upton

Charity mystery

HAS anyone noticed the large number of charity “begging bags” that have been delivered since the year began?

We, in Bebington, seem to get an endless stream of them – 15 in fact. Three were from the same charity.

How often do these people think we have clothes to throw away?

The bags are either just thrown into the porch or rammed in the letterbox in such a way that mail cannot be delivered.

If one does put things out you never know if it’s going to the right place or not.

Empty (unfilled) bags are never, ever picked up and are left to just blow away, possibly causing accidents from people slipping on them.

These people have got to come and pick up the clothes so why not pick up the empty ones to use again elsewhere?

MR & MRS DALE AND FAMILY,

Bebington