Take a close look! Kirklees is better than you think

“So much for zero-tolerance approach to antiSemitism - this is a terrible betrayal of Jewish Labour supporters and our values” - Labour MP Wes Streeting on the decision not to expel Ken Livingstone from the party over his comments about Hitler and Zionism. “The media must stop treating politics like a game and do its job of informing people about what the Government is doing and what we’ll do differently” WHEN he writes glowingly about the successes of East Hampshire District Council (EHDC) in reducing its council tax, M Carter (Feedback, April 4) conveniently ignores significant differences between that place and Kirklees.

East Hampshire is a district council with no responsibilty for social care; Kirklees does have such duties.

The population of Kirklees is over 434,000, East Hampshire has only 118,100 people.

The population density here is 2,750 per square mile; in East Hampshire it is merely 590 in an area over 40 square miles larger.

The problems associated with a small rural district bear no comparison with those faced by a large urban authority.

Moreover, money which is received by the EHDC from the Government under the New Homes Bonus, paid for giving planning permission, for this year will be over £3.3million compared with only £8.8m in the much larger Kirklees.

In addition, EHDC makes money out of investing some of its reserves in property from which it takes rents - some £700,000 a year. This is peanuts compared with Kirklees’ budget, and property investment here where there are many empty shops would probably produce far less of a return.

There are no easy answers to the problems of local finances in the face of cuts from central government.

M Carter suggests, among other things, that services could be privatised.

Well, they will still have to be paid for and there is no evidence that privately-run services are better value for money - look at some of the problems associated with services provided by Capita and G4S, for example, not to mention the PFI costs to the NHS.

Once privatised, democratic control is removed.

In case M Carter should be