Council and income tax should be joined
Due to a change in financial circumstances a family member recently applied for a council tax rebate, following advice from AgeUK.
As a former NBC housing officer to assist this pensioner, I witnessed first hand the unbelievable bureaucracy that still exists.
In a telephone call lasting almost an hour, a NBC rebate advisor went through the relevant figures. His conclusion: no qualification.
Back to AgeUK again, and it was confirmed, and by another council advisor, the case would get a rebate. Then, not satisfied with a disabled senior citizen’s integrity, a home visit had to be arranged, the first appointment being aborted. During a second house call, the interview lasting almost another hour, all bank statements and personal details were photocopied to be taken to the Guildhall for scrutiny by another staff member. Four hours minimum of well paid council staff time for this one case alone! One of thousands in Northampton annually, millions nationwide. Imagine the colossal red-tape cost!
If the person’s monetary balance status changes by £250, another visit has to be done.
I was told many people give up at interview, especially pensioners, who lose out on valuable financial help.
This vindicates my long standing argument that this tax needs to be amalgamated with income tax. No expensive bills to send. No rebates to allocate, no payment defaulters, money taken at source, no fraud, consequently no expensive court appearances.
Everyone would pay according to means, not solely householders being targeted for easy pickings within the outdated rateable value method. All eligible people should contribute to local services we all use, paid for at present by only a third of residents.
The huge unnecessary scores of highly paid staff salary costs would be used to reinstate front line services and to switch on the street lighting.
Eric Pickles take action! Government controls 85 per cent of the cost by grants, so why not all of it? While you are at it, unite NBC with NCC for more serious savings!
Keith Jackson,
Tavistock Close, Northampton.
Shops would be desecration
I shuddered with foreboding when I read last Thursday about the possible closure of the Central Library. Your opinion column seemed to regard the consignment to the scrapheap of this superb building and its replacement by a shopping mall as some sort of positive development for the town’s commerce.
Like other philanthropists of that time, Andrew Carnegie who put up the money for libraries like Central and those at Kettering, Rushden and Irchester, had in mind the intellectual uplift of the town’s working classes. Central Library was one of the first in the world to open its own children’s library under the same roof in 1912. Clearly our forebears wanted to encourage children to read and study rather than hang around shopping malls!
The Central Library which celebrated its 100th anniversary last year has also had £180,000 invested in bringing its ground floor borrowing and internet facilities up to date. The prospect of all this going to waste and the inevitable mothballing of precious stock made necessary by a move from the present site should appal anyone who believes, like Carnegie did, that libraries are an investment in the public’s future. The people who should benefit from libraries are those like Carnegie himself who take it upon themselves to self-study and thereby improve their own prospects. Allowing retail corporations access to such sites is a desecration!
The four statues of local poets, Dryden and Fuller, as well as George Washington and Carnegie himself, at the front of the building, stand as monuments to the achievements of cultivated and self-made men. Were they to be replaced by the logos of stores like Tesco and Lidl, Northampton, like the rest of our country, would have yet another monument to its self-inflicted dumbing down at the hands of corporate business.
I note since in your editorial the county council has made clear its intention to retain the Central Library on its current site. God willing the building will be celebrating its 200th anniversary long after we have all passed on.
Fred Evans,
Elmhurst Court, Spinney Hill, Northampton.
Why would you fly-tip in pond?
I WAS taking our three Yorkshire terriers for a walk around the Westone estate, and thought I would have a quick look at the hotel’s pond. To my amazement, what do I see? Only a television set floating around the waterfall!
I have looked after the pond for the hotel for around 25 years and I have retrieved many items, from a road-closed sign down to a float, hook and line.
What makes someone want to throw a telly in a fish pond, or anything else for that matter?
Maybe someone out there knows who it was?
James Coe,
Westone, Northampton.
Tickets should be half price
Who else agrees with me that ticket prices for children at the theatre are much too high? For example, Royal & Derngate, Northampton are charging £19 to £23 (the same price as adults), with a miserly £3 off for certain shows, for the pantomime, Aladdin, this Christmas. I have emailed my complaints. How many more of you will do likewise? I believe very strongly in half price for kids. Who cares to join me and help get our children/grandchildren a fair deal? I wonder how many children are being denied the pleasure of a show that was surely created with them in mind, simply because they can’t afford to go? Hang your heads in shame, Royal & Derngate!
John Everiss,
Frobisher Close, Daventry.
Greyhounds risk death at races
I am writing in response to Plan to build ‘Britain’s best greyhound track’ at Towcester Racecourse, October 6, 2011.
If a greyhound racetrack is constructed at Towcester, certain attendees will have nothing to celebrate. The greyhounds will risk injury and death with each race.
Dog racing has always been a losing game for the greyhounds. It is cruel and inhumane. The greyhounds live in abysmal confinement in sub-standard conditions. When let out to race, they face suffering injuries such as broken legs, broken necks, paralysis, and death by cardiac arrest. Considered investments, even the fastest greyhounds are valued only as long as they are generating a profit. According to the RSPCA, United Kingdom greyhounds that are injured or not fast enough disappear at the rate of 20 per day. That is no way to treat a dog.
I respectfully urge South Northamptonshire Council members to consider that dogs deserve to be protected from industries that cause them harm. I ask readers to consider this information before placing wagers that would subsidise a cruel industry.
I have adopted retired greyhounds since 1997, and I am a board member of GREY2K USA, a national non-profit organisation that works to end the cruelty of dog racing. For more information, please visit www.grey2kusa.org
Caryn Wood,
Board of directors, GREY2K USA.
Running further
I have no doubt Mrs Bromwich will represent my views from Cornwall just as well as she has done from Litchborough – I can recall no occasion when what she said chimed in any way with anything I have ever thought.
This appears just a further example of local councillors doing what so many of them appear to do regularly: “Take the money and run!” Maybe Mrs Bromwich has gone a bit further than most, but I seem to remember reading about an example set by a councillor who went even further.
Fred Filer,
Windmill Way, Greens Norton.
No expenses
I trust Councillor Bromwich will not be claiming any travelling expenses to represent her constituents in Towcester following her self-inflicted re-location to Cornwall?
Shaun Hope,
Rectory Lane, Milton Malsor.
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