Drums and cutters

Well the councils were listening, but no one was saying anything....

A public meeting was held yesterday evening at Sudbury Upper School aimed at seeking community views on the hard pressed budgets of both Babergh District and Suffolk County Council.  It looked at first sight as though it was going to be something of a non event.

Of the 10 people huddled in the gloomy lecture hall, which would have accommodated at least 300 people, only two, stalwarts from Citizens Advice and the Bridge Project, were not elected representatives.   The Mayor of Sudbury, Tony Platt, who always takes his job seriously, was in attendance, and apart from him only a handful of Conservative Councillors from Babergh and from the Town Council had turned out to listen.

This was, of course, a disappointment.  I know from my many years as an investment analyst that a lot of people find financial matters pretty tedious, and the finances of local authorities only really arouse people when they are being asked to fork out for some service or other, or are facing a substantial increase in council tax. I wonder what would have happened if the meeting had been billed as a chance to ‘have your say on short term car parking charges.’ ?.  Even this, I fear, might not have brought out the crowds on a chilly November evening.

All was not lost however, and the evening was not without its amusements.  Babergh’s Director of Finance, Barry Hunter, is always an entertaining speaker.   He boldly addressed the rather sparse audience as though the hall was full, and pointedly ignored the fact that many of us were already well aware of the tale of financial woe that he was telling.  At one stage someone started to have what sounded like a rather loud drumming lesson in an adjacent room.  This enlivened the proceedings somewhat.

Also, after the presentations, since councillors love to talk, we all had a jolly good chat among ourselves about the issues.  Some interesting ideas were aired.  It was good to engage with representatives from the County, and I think we should take time to do this more often.  I do envy the County councillors the flexibility that a budget in excess of £1bn gives when it comes to taking hard decisions!