That's as maybe, but it's how and where it's spent that matters. There are plenty of 'pet' projects that this Council is all too happy to fund when it has the money - decorating bits of street furniture with street art for one - yet it's happy to let core service deteriorate. Trying to stick a shipping container in Blondin Park (which has £20,000 of s106 money earmarked for it) is another. Nobody really needs that.The argument they put forward is that residents should run their own services if they want them to continue. Yet the Council's own recent survey found that just 11 percent of respondents would be happy to do this - which rather makes a mockery of the claim that everyone in the borough wants to get more involved. In fact, that same survey found that 36 percent would happily pay more council tax if it meant services continued. Of course, neither of those figures was trumpeted when the Council published its results.That same survey found people were less and less satisfied with the way the Council was running services. That too was ignored, in favour of telling us that most people were happy living in Ealing. They completely missed the point of the survey findings, which were actually fairly damning of the Council's performance. They spent a lot of money funding this research, and as usual they ignored it.The fact remains that there is a substantial sum of money being accrued by the Council. The argument will be that it's being saved for a 'rainy day'. I'd suggest that rainy day has already arrived.The point is, as made by Phillipa in an earlier post, that libraries are not simply places to borrow books. They provide a range of essential services to people who may not have access to them otherwise. That's particularly true of internet services, which is way beyond the means of anyone on a low income, such as a job seeker.The community managed model is flawed. The Council in its propaganda for this approach used the example of Wool in Dorset. That's a small village library, open for just SEVEN hours a week. Hardly a comprehensive offer, and certainly not comparable with the needs of an area such as West Ealing or Northfields.The truth is these types of library need a huge reserve of volunteers to keep them going. With the best will in the world, those volunteers will lack the knowledge and experience of trained, professional library staff. The Council even makes reference to the staff when it says anyone wishing to respond to statutory consultations can use the library internet service and avail themselves of the knowledge of the trained staff.There's also the little matter of funding for these libraries. All very well saying the rent will be at peppercorn rates for the first three years - there will still be a substantial amount of money needed to operate these buildings, so the begging bowls will be out all the time. There's nothing to say that the rents won't substantially increase after that three year period, then where does that leave these libraries.Compare that to the generous terms offered to QPR for taking over Warren Farm - nominal rent for public land with a 200 year lease!Consider the staff who will run these libraries. Volunteers who will all have to be DBS checked, which is a time consuming process. There are a lot of children who use these libraries, so this is an important element.What happens if they get a drunk or aggressive individual coming in? Who is responsible for removing them from the premises? What do they do if someone refuses to leave the library at closing time? In West Ealing they round up the users very vocally but not everyone has that confidence. This is not a small village in Dorset, this is an urban London borough, which has a range of social ills which often find their way to the library doors.The real mischief here is the continuing con perpetrated by Julian Bell and his cohort. They refused to put up Council Tax as a purely political move, yet boasted back in 2016 that they had budgeted to cope with the cuts from central government funding (Look how clever I am, said Julian).Three years later they say there's no money. They claim Council Tax is a regressive tax and hits those on lower incomes the hardest. Utter nonsense. Plenty of those people claim relief on the tax. And if people can afford Sky TV packages and the like, then they can afford the Council Tax which pays for the services from which they benefit. I'd suggest the lower income residents were probably harder hit by the hike in CPZ charges, which meant that people with more polluting vehicles - which they may rely on for work - faced a dilemma about keeping them. It didn't make a jot of difference to anyone with a huge diesel powered 4x4 parked on a private driveway.What the people of Ealing should really be asking is what is this Council actually doing for us? Precious little it would seem.
Simon Hayes ● 2506d