Susan Woodward

AUSTERITY isn’t over. Not at all.

In fact, the crumbs of comfort that the Chancellor offered to local Government in the Budget are more than wiped out by the cuts in Government funding for this next financial year.

The proposals for a further £35m cuts put forward by Staffordshire County Council therefore still stand unless the council gets an injection of additional cash in next month’s financial settlement – or we use our political muscle to change things.

For starters, the cuts propose the loss of all school crossing patrols across the county. Surely, the safety of our school children shouldn’t be compromised.

Have you lobbied your county councillor yet about this?

Then, there’s the proposed loss of travel concessions for young people and older people. Those who use public transport and rely on it for getting to work, education, socialising, shopping or simply staying independent are going to be hit hard.

The loss of support for local community transport schemes will add to people’s travel misery: how will they get to medical appointments?

So far, I’ve had a number of individual county residents and community organisations contact me about the impacts of these cuts.

But not many. Did you know about them? Have you made any noise yet?

If people are not yet aware of the proposed cuts, they certainly will be when we get a spell of severe winter weather as grit bins will remain unfilled.

Next year, they will notice that grass verges aren’t cut and weeds in gutters and on pavements aren’t treated.

They will also notice when the cuts to “back office” mean that they have to wait far longer for answers to their questions or requests for information, the payment of invoices is delayed or complaints take longer to be resolved.

It’s too easy, to talk about cuts to administration as though they have no effect. They do.

So please use your political muscle. Contact your County councillor, your MP, even your District or Parish councillors if you’re concerned and ask what they are doing in the face of these further cuts to services.

It’s not too late, but it soon will be.