OUR quality of life depends on the assets we own and enjoy together as a community, and stories in this paper of NHS staff shortages and closures of libraries and a children’s respite centre, are alarming.
The Hereford Times highlights amazing committed local charities, but their work is not an excuse for our elected representatives to shirk their responsibilities towards society.
We shouldn’t be surprised at the failure of Jesse Norman’s much vaunted ‘fighting for fairer funding for Herefordshire’, since his own party’s mission is to starve councils of money, and sell off our hard-won public assets.
Persuading people that public spending was a bad thing got this destructive government, and our short-sighted Conservative-led council, into power. How predictable that our libraries, buses, forests, council smallholdings and the CAB would be endangered.
Far from throwing money away, public spending is an investment in the future; once our assets have gone they’ve gone, and our county is impoverished. Charities are brilliant at caring for the most vulnerable, but they cannot go on picking up the pieces.
Let’s challenge the austerity myth, support local campaigns for the common good, and work together to protect what we care about.
DIANA TOYNBEE Green Party, Hereford Eaton Bishop
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