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strategic change, demanding strong, committed management. While Conservative candidates may well wish to propose this, the Conservative Party should meet all the costs of speculative investigations. Council officers should wait until the new council is elected and gives them clear guidance as to the options they should consider. The economies of scale in waste collection demand that any change should be made in consultation with neighbouring councils – and that again must wait until after May’s council elections.

The conduct of the Conservative group is worrying. In particular, the decision to start work on the controversial multi-storey car park before the election reeks of an arrogant disregard for democracy. Alternatives have been put forward – including one from our former Lord Mayor, George Metcalfe, for a multi-storey car park to avoid the environmentally horrendous scheme for concreting over the water meadows and marshes by the Stour. The financial projections for the multi-storey car park project are unconvincing. The approach of the Conservative group has an uncomfortable similarity to that adopted by company boards fighting off takeovers – swallow some poison pills to ensure that the challenger cannot succeed. It looks very much as if the Conservatives are resigned to defeat and are now determined to leave so many financial problems for an alternative administration that it is bound to fail.

I shall be standing as an independent candidate in the forthcoming elections. If elected, I hope to persuade my fellow councillors of the need for a thorough investigation of the decisions taken in the year before the election. I shall press for councillors personally to carry the costs incurred in any project that has to be cancelled when recklessness or political impropriety is established.