LETTERS – Residents might have better ideas

Reading of senior South Holland councillors’ plans to re-organise our services yet again via the proposed link-up with East Lindsey and Boston councils, I’m sure I can’t be the only one bemused by the way this all seems to have been cooked up behind closed doors.

The challenges facing our area are blindingly obvious, yet it seems that our Conservative councillors are once again putting all their energies into ensuring that the services on which South Holland residents depend are to be run from anywhere but South Holland. Even the council’s employees, it seems, have been kept in the dark about what’s going on.

As a Spalding resident, I’ve watched the deterioration of the town centre and its surrounds with growing sadness. To cap it all, we’re now forced to witness the effective mothballing of our main centre for arts and culture, the South Holland Centre. I have no doubt that, before long, plans for the centre to be handed over to another organisation will creep into the media, and we’ll be told that it’s all to save money, never mind that there may be no guarantee that it will continue to be available for local music societies and dance and theatre groups.
I’d like to ask South Holland Conservative councillors two questions:

Do you actually have a vision, even some imaginative plans, for regenerating our area?

Is there any chance you might start by asking local residents what we want, rather than deciding on our behalf and then informing us when it’s all cut and dried?

You never know, you may get a surprise and find that some South Holland residents have better ideas than yours.

Martin Blake
South Holland Green Party