BIG PICTURE

●● This week’s Big Picture is a ramble in Nuttall Park by Luke Shaw. Email your pictures to us at freepressnews@menmedia.co.uk or upload them to flickr.com/groups/rossendale pics outside the box and radically cut costs by reducing Council management structures, salary levels and pensions? As an example, in the Rossendale Free Press dated Friday 4th October 2019 Alyson Barnes sated that she was delighted that Neil Shaw was joining Rossendale Borough Council as the new CEO, however the appointment has not resulted in any Council tax reductions. I was advised in a FOI request that the CEO has a salary of £102,842.

My point here is – Can we afford such management structures when more and more young people cannot even get on the housing ladder and have to depend on the bank of Mum and Dad or rent for the rest of their lives. In other words, the fixed cost base of owning a property is becoming beyond the reach of but a select few.

The response to complaints about Council tax increases is usually met with comments that Rossendale Borough Council only retain a small percent of the Council tax we pay in the Valley.

With that in mind I asked Lancashire County

Council via a freedom of information request how much of the taxes they received were needed to pay staff salaries and pensions, that figure was around 40%.

It appears to me that at both a local and County level staff and pension costs need radically reducing.

Dr Bob Barker Stacksteads

Bacup