I have just received through my letterbox the latest edition of the Council’s own self applauding trumpet-blowing propaganda magazine Sutton Scene and on reading it I found the article entitled “Our Budget-You Said We Did It” laughable if it wasn’t for the fact that it was not so serious.

They claim to have asked the residents for their views and trumpet the fact that they received 700 responses. With the number of residences in the Borough approaching 90,000 and assuming they asked everyone (I wasn’t asked!) they received replies from less than 1%. Not exactly a resounding success or an endorsement of their plans!!

It shows the Council living up to the slogan attributed to them of “Consult, Consider and Ignore” when it comes to the views of the residents that it represents.

Under the heading of Cutting Waste it states on how much the public dislike benefit cheats and that they have managed to track down nearly £400k so far this year. What about the previous 23-24 years that the Lib/Dems have run the Council?

It states in the article that the Council will be reducing its communication budget – how about starting by scrapping the Sutton Scene which cost the local taxpayer £1m to produce, money which could be spent on more deserving causes which benefit local residents.

They say that they should be able to freeze council tax for this year. The fact is that they only froze council tax last year because it was election year. Freezing the tax for two years hardly makes ups for the previous 14 years where they have burdened their local residents with increases it year on year!

They claim to have reduced staff costs over the past 5 years by reducing the number of executive head positions by15% so can they please explain why they appointed a new chief executive on a salary of circa £300k if the post was not needed?

They say that they are reviewing their use of agency staff, consultants and temporary staff. Something that they have failed to do for the past 23-24 years costing the local resident millions of pounds in tax payers’ money.

They claim that in partnership with the police they have made the streets of Sutton some of the safest in the Capital, if that’s the case then why do official figures show the crime rate in Sutton is actually rising?

They say that they will reduce some of the Councils costs by selling off its assets such as Denmark Road but what they fail to say is that they are going to squander considerable sums of money over the next few years refurbishing the Civic offices!

They are also trying to push blame on money that they have wasted on major developments/projects onto other parties for example the Life Centre which cost some £9m. They are now blaming its failure on both local schools and other schools from across the London boroughs for not visiting it.

A further £3-4m wasted on the redevelopment of the Town Centre which today still looks a total shambles and appears incomplete! It looks worse now than before the work was started!

Things that they have failed to mention include: 1) £5m invested in the doomed Icelandic Banks despite being warned against doing so.

2) £600k squandered on a single bus shelter in Throwley Way 3) £23k wasted on 2 Totem Poles in St Helier 4) £160k squandered on Sutton Safety Scheme in which less than 10% of residents that were consulted even bothered to reply.

5) £300-400k wasted on their shambolic Garden Waste Scheme 6) £50k wasted on Entrance Tables The list could go on and on highlighting just how the Lib/Dem run Council has put tax payers money to such waste spending it on unwanted and unnecessary schemes and projects. Money that could and should have been spent on more worthwhile causes and on the needs of the boroughs residents.

The Sutton Scene is a totally unbalanced highly biased propaganda magazine churned out by the Lib/Dem run Council and should not be taken seriously. It is a complete waste of tax payers money. The Council has nothing to be proud of and should not use such propaganda to try and fool the public to think otherwise.

Yours faithfully

C. CARTER