Council goes to market to gauge views
The leaders of Northamptonshire County Council say the authority's You Choose roadshow brought up some interesting ideas about how the council can save cash, despite campaigners labelling it a "waste of money".
Several of the council's top members manned a stall on Northampton's market yesterday, asking people how they should make the predicted 100 million of savings the council needs to find by 2014.
Regular suggestions included focusing on repairing pot holes, reducing the pay of the council's top executives and spending less on school building projects.
The leader of the authority, Councillor Jim Harker (Con, Kettering Rural) said: "I think one of the points that's probably quite obvious, but I'd not thought about before, is people's priorities change as they go through life.
"Young people are saying they want more services aimed at them, parents are interested in education and older people are interested in things like country parks and of course care for the elderly."
The council launched the You Choose campaign last month after all the national political parties warned that whoever wins the general election, councils would have to make large savings in the future.
But the fact consultants were paid to help run the 100,000 You Choose campaign has been criticised by some.
Councillor Harker said: "Yes, 100,000 is a lot of money, but it's a very small percentage of the 100 million we need to save and if we can get some good saving ideas from the public, we can make that money back easily."
But campaigners who protested at the roadshow labelled it a waste of cash.
Sarah Ansell, secretary of Northampton Trades Union Council, said: "We believe this is phoney consultation. They're not really giving people choice. They're saying cuts have to be made, but they should say to the Government they're just not prepared to do it."
The next roadshow will be held in at the Grosvenor Centre on Saturday, March 20 or people can take part by visiting youchoose.northamptonshire.gov.uk
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