I’ve just opened up my Council Tax bill for 2011/12. Convenient it arrived on door mats on a by-election day!

The governments extra cash to local authorities to avoid any inflationary increase is welcome – obviously the Labour led Southwark Council doesn’t explain that. It also disingenuously talks about the cuts and sacrifices – why Labour in Southwark think adding £27M to its reserves for a rainy day makes any sense now is beyond me.  The Lib Dems left the council on a back office saving trajectory. So the national cuts really haven’t needed to be that bad in Southwark – hence the crazy reserves increase to increase the pain.

Amazingly the Lea Valley Regional Park authority has only decided to decrease its spend by 2% and still creams of millions of pounds from Londoners who have never heard or even visited its facilities which are mostly located in Essex and Herts. When the people of Essex and Herts have a levy on all council tax bills to pay for Burgess Park and Dulwich Park it would appear fairer.