The Peterborough Evening Telegraph
Please think carefully
With local elections coming up on 2nd May, residents should be reminded of how important it is to vote and to think carefully about their choices.
Perhaps partly due to low voter turnout at local elections, the city council has had approximately 20 years of majority or full Conservative control since 2002. During this time, the situation at the town hall has become increasingly financially precarious with a vast number of cuts to public services.
Whatever people’s political views, I'm sure many residents will surely raise an eyebrow at recent attempts by the former council leader in this publication to paint a debt of £462 million as a “positive financial position”.
Whilst the root of much of this has been significant reductions in funding by central (Conservative) governments, decisions at a local level have often been extremely questionable also. For example, I would urge any resident who has not
gone down the rabbit hole of the Hilton Garden Hotel and Fletton Quays development saga to do so.
It is no surprise perhaps that locally, we see Conservative councillors
“jumping ship” and trying to disassociate themselves with their former party in order to try and remain in power.
The people of Peterborough however, must not be taken for fools.
In many cases (such as my own ward of Hampton and Hempstead), it is the self same individuals distributing leaflets extolling the virtues of “voting independent” and exclaiming “never again” in relation to the Conservative administration, who themselves were part of that very same administration just a short time ago. One must ask, can we really trust the same people that got us into this mess to get us out? Just because they now wear a different colour rosette.
I am not politically affiliated and would not attempt to tell the people of Peterborough who they should vote for on the 2nd May. I would however, hope it should be perfectly clear to them who NOT to vote for by now.
Rob Scriven, Peterborough