As I write, the County Council have indicated £1000+ as the final ‘average’ Council Tax next year.
The Borough Council are having to make difficult choices between providing services they have ‘traditionally’ provided and those by statute.
The Town Council - well, it is election year and they have ‘loadsamoney’ in the bank they find it difficult to spend.

Whatever the final result, you can bet that we all end up paying more money and getting less for for it. Even our wonderful Labour government, under the watchful eyes of Gordon Brown and Bambi, have promised to relieve us of some hard earned cash from April onwards.

Perhaps it’s about time we ‘re-thought’ what we expect from our local authorities. Perhaps if the ‘non-profit’ making activities were carried out as residents expect and only then, the ‘optional’ items looked at.

For example, refuse collection, roads and highways, care for the elderly and ‘affordable’ housing are the type of things I believe local authorities should concentrate on.

The ‘optional’ items have to include trying to keep the over 50’s out of mischief, pouring money into the arts and providing sports facilities.
Every time I have passed the Jarmans Park athletic track, the car parks are empty and so has just about everything else. The Pavilion was finally pulled down once the ½ million quid spent every year trying to keep it going actually had to be thought about. Why does the Borough pour money into these facilities when no-one uses them?

You notice both the examples are located in Hemel for the Borough use. I’m sure similar facilities could have been provided elsewhere in the borough at far less cost if it had to be done. I bet any of the major towns (Tring, Berko, Kings Langley) would have loved the money to be used to provide facilities in their town, but of course, if you put all the attractions in one place, the idea is that people will come in their thousands. What a pity the ‘experts’ haven’t worked out that if you have 5 attractions in one place and 100 people attend, it’s likely that each will get 20 visitors and all loose or maybe 80 go to just one. It is exactly the same situation with television. We had one channel, then two, then three and so on. For some reason, viewers per program are going down even though more televisions are sold. It’s not rocket science to have a very good idea why!

Thank you all to taking the trouble to visit this site and I wish you all a happy, prosperous and healthy New year.