WHO SHOULD WE BLAME? -  A PERSONAL VIEW By Cllr Stephen Peters                  

Every time something goes wrong we always hear the protest – “The Council is to blame!” But is it really that simple?

Here in north Worcestershire we have some of the worst roads in the county. It is a fact that 3 times as much is spent in the south of the county and it shows. Drive through Wychavon or Worcester and you will find the roads better maintained than in Bromsgrove.

Twice since last Christmas the A.435 between the M42 and Redditch has had to be closed due to icy conditions and lack of salt / gritting by the highways authority – Worcestershire County Council. The problem has manifested itself this year because the A.435 has been de-trunked and is no longer maintained to a high standard by the Highways Agency (a government body). Instead, the financial burden has now been placed on local council tax payers. Why? Because the EU decides which roads in the United Kingdom are “strategic” – and the A.435 is no longer one of them!

70 per cent of your Council Tax goes to Worcs County Council to pay for its services including waste disposal. This is another area where EU directives mean you end up paying for legislation imposed on the UK by un-elected bureaucrats in Brussels.

We are in the deepest recession anyone can remember and the demand for waste products such as paper and plastics has reduced to the extent that the County Council now has to pay for warehouse space to store the unwanted dry recyclables. Once again the financial cost has to be borne by the gullible local Council Tax payers. No one wants this stuff. This is shear madness. And will become worse when the multi-million pound recycling sorting facility near Worcester is finally brought into use later in 2009. Yet another example of additional cost imposed on the County Council to meet the demand of EU waste directives.

The same directives mean that the refuse service provided by Bromsgrove District Council now costs 3 times what it did before wheeled bins and fortnightly collections and recycling were introduced. And why does our refuse service cost 50% more than Redditch? Because we were forced to buy experimental German collection vehicles and after years of costly breakdowns and problems it has finally been decided to change the fleet to conventional rear-loading lorries.

Don’t be misled by the Council Tax you pay Bromsgrove to collect your waste – remember that the cost of final disposal is extra and forms part of the tax you pay to the County Council, thanks to Landfill Taxes imposed by the EU.

The tentacles of the EU reach into every sphere of council activity – planning decisions must conform to policies imposed on us via the unelected and undemocratic Regional Assembly. The EU believes that people from Staffordshire and Shropshire know more about the needs of Worcestershire than our own elected representatives!

Thanks to EU Air Quality directives Bromsgrove District Council spends thousands every year in monitoring air quality following expenditure of more than £100,000 on a district-wide study which revealed that pollution is worse around motorway junctions. And yet nothing can be done to reduce the problem – short of closing the motorways!

The EU has decided that the answer to global warming is to erect costly, unsightly and inefficient wind turbines in our countryside. Some are planned to deface Bromsgrove. Incentive payments are available to construct these giant windmills which only generate electricity when the wind blows, at far greater cost than alternative renewable sources and which electricity suppliers are forced to purchase and to pass on the cost to hard-pressed householders.

The EU has also effectively spelt the death-knell for rural Post Offices by Directives insisting on the deregulation of postal services and the introduction of competition from European postal providers. The result has been to curtail Government subsidies for rural Post offices leading to their closure – and the loss of vital village stores.

You can complain all you want to your councillors or your MP but there is absolutely nothing they can do to prevent the insidious intervention of the EU into our daily lives. The only answer is for us to withdraw from EU membership and to take control of our own destinies once more.