YP Letters: Leeds Council should cut out waste before it complains over cash

From: Peter Haddington, Eccleshill, Bradford.
Leeds Council chief executive Tom Riordan.Leeds Council chief executive Tom Riordan.
Leeds Council chief executive Tom Riordan.

HOW much more do the people of Leeds have to take from a council which has constantly wasted taxpayers’ money and cut public services to save money and then have the audacity to raise council tax by five per cent?

When I hear councillors blaming the Government’s funding cuts for them being cash-strapped, I always think of the workman who blames his tools for his own workmanship. The fortunes of public money that this organisation has wasted on failed transport systems, and moneyspinning projects that benefit few people apart from themselves, never get a mention from the council.

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You constantly hear them moaning that they’re cash-strapped, but if they are, how much of it is their own fault? Many people will believe that they are cash-strapped, but I am not one of them.

My idea of cash-strapped are families who can barely afford to eat who are forced to use food banks, and people who are too ill to work who have had their benefits cut to the bone, not an organisation who can afford to pay several of their employees well in excess of £100,000 a year.

Are these people who earn these large amounts of money really deserving of these high incomes or do they need to be looked at, or weeded out, rather than increasing council tax by so much?

It appears to me that some people at the top are not capable of making the right decisions or Leeds would have a proper transport system by now.

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It is always the taxpayer who picks up the bill for the council’s errors, and the public have become little other than a cash cow for the council who they know they can always fall back on when things go wrong.

The council tax has become almost something for nothing and I always thought that this tax covered waste disposal, but now we have extra charges for dumping rubbish.

The motorist continues to drive on crumbling and potholed roads, mainly due to excessive roadworks and substandard finishing. Instead of a five per cent rise, the public deserve to receive rebates for this tax as the service has become a complete and utter shambles.

From: A Hague, Bellbrooke Grove, Harehills, Leeds.

WE keep getting complaints that Leeds City Council is wasting millions on cycle tracks when its money from the Government should be spent on NHS and social care. Regarding narrower roads causing a bottleneck, look at a bottle’s shape. A wider road is no good if it narrows further on as less can get through.