[Acrylic-bob]

HBC appear to have a problem funding anything which carries with it a committment to maintenance. That is why we lost Oak Hill Mansion and why the parks are in such a desperate state. Have a look at their website, in there you will find a number of reports which reveal the attitude of the council to matters of heritage.

The council says it spends 99% of it's budget on what it calls 'Core Services' and has to seek external funding for anything else. Core Services, thats a good one! With the amount of money that the Council collect from us and from Central Government and from Europe we should have 'Core Services' that are second to none and a shining example to the rest of the country. Instead we have filthy streets and a council that appears incapable of getting anything right at the first attempt. They have been responsible for collecting the same refuse from the same areas for the last thirty years and yet to hear them talk you would think that they only started to tackle the problem last week. If it was only refuse collection that was problematic that would be bad enough, but this goes right through every department.

In such a climate of institutionalised incompetence, what chance does our rapidly vanishing heritage stand?