WHILE trumpeting the award of £22.4 million to Hereford from the Stronger Town Fund it is disingenuous that Jesse Norman (Opinion, June 10) did not give a more complete picture of government support for our local authority.

Between 2011/12 and 2021/22 the Revenue Support Grant paid by central government has been cut from £60.1 million to £0.06 million. 

The cumulative total of lost revenue over this time is far higher than £60 million even before inflation is taken into account.

Glad though I am that some useful projects will get some belated support, I am not grateful for a small proportion of the lost money being graciously handed back to us so that our Conservative MPs can point at things that "they have helped facilitate" whilst our local authority struggles to fund less immediately obvious things like social care and protection of children.

This pattern is being repeated across the country, with the majority of grants under this scheme going to Conservative-controlled local authorities and/or towns with Conservative MPs. 

A very clever strategy that really does live up to the 'con' in Conservativism.

One of the worst political trends that I have observed during my adult life is the systematic underfunding and weakening of local government from the 1980s to now, primarily at the hands of Conservative governments.

I despair when I compare what local councils ran in Herefordshire then compared with now. 

Recognise the £22.4 million for what it is really is: a cheap election bribe, and reject its progenitors at the next electoral opportunity.

Anna  Coda
Chair
Hereford and South Herefordshire Labour Party

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