| Topic: | Re:Proposed closure of Wandsworth Museum | |
| Posted by: | Jonathan Callaway | |
| Date/Time: | 08/01/07 18:23:00 |
| Dear Lucille Well, we seem to have a number of people who agree that the Museum is worth preserving. I have raised this with my local councillor, Liz Stokes, who has passed my concerns on to Malcolm Grimston, who has yet to reply. I suggest all of us who want the Museum to stay should start by contacting our councillors and indeed writing to Edward Lister's Ask The Leader web page (http://www.wandsworth.gov.uk/Home/MyWandsworth/Leaders/default.htm). He will give you a standard non-reply which I posted a few days ago (see below) but presumably if enough people write to him somebody in WBC might start counting up the numbers and reassess whether it will cost too much political capital to save some cash running costs. I hope the Council will come clean on the actual costs so if a "Friends of the Musuem" group is started there will be some sort of target to aim for. Councillor Lister's non-reply: " Dear Mr Callaway Thank you for your email. The Council is in a very tight financial position where it is not getting enough money from the Government to keep up with the rising costs of the services it is expected to provide. Next year our grant increase has been set at the lowest possible level (2.7%) which is well below the rate of inflation. In effect the Council is having to find an extra £5m every year just to keep services going at their existing level. This is the gap between the extra £3m grant we get from the Government and the extra £8m needed to keep up with inflation. Even if we raised the Council Tax by the full amount allowed by the Government, this would come nowhere near to bridging this gap. In these circumstances we are having to go through a painful exercise of examining all spending areas and looking for ways of ensuring that we can maintain funding for the most vital services on which people depend. Yours sincerely Councillor Edward Lister Leader of the Council " |