Saturday 28 February 2009

Mike Freer - Cutting back the costs

Mike has been busy recently trying to get the government to ease the financial strain on businesses and Council Tenants. At a meeting of London Councils, Mike forcefully argued for a freeze on business rates. Mike said that business rates were going up by 5% and London Councils should be arguing for them to be frozen in London. I don't think too many people (apart from Gordon Brown) would disagree with that.


In Mike's excellent Leader listens blog he details how Council tenants will face a rise fo between six and nine percent. Mike argues that this Government driven rise should be reconsidered, given the current financial climate.

One practical step Mike's council have introduced is to inroduce special parking permist for builders working on residents homes. This will help companies and residents who are involved in work improving homes.
This follows the success of the permits for religious leaders, which allows community leaders to buy Borough wide parking permits to allow visits for the needy.

We are lucky to have a council leader like Mike who cares about all sections of the community.

1 comment:

Statler and Waldorf said...

Dear sycophant,

There seem to be some gaps in your article, so whilst we wait for Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway we thought we'd fill them in.

OGL seems to have missed out on a few claims to fame.

He doesn't talk about Pay and Display users having to fork out 25% increase, and parents of dead children nearly 10% increase in burial fees. Nor does he talk about the 20% increase in expenses that his Councillors have voted for some of the highest paid 'yes men'.

All at the same time Council Tax will go up in Barnet at 28 TIMES the RPI inflation rate (at the time the Cabinet approved it) and twice the average increase in London which is 1.2%.

All those big flat screen TVs, first class air fares, huge electric bills for thousands of lights and computers left on overnight at the Council's offices, £1000 a piece new microphones for Councillors at Council meetings, jollies to Cannes, £2 million job lots of £2,000 laptops held in storage until a use can be found for them and million pound Councillor expenses really do add up!

Funny he doesn't mention that.

We thought we would rectify the ommision.

With fuzzy hugs,

S&W