| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Proposed closure of Wandsworth Museum | |
| Posted by: | Malcolm Grimston | |
| Date/Time: | 12/01/07 11:00:00 |
| But these are false choices. We may find we have to put council tax up by the maximum £17.70 anyway and still have to make huge savings. There may well be better ways of spending £400,000 if we could raise it - we need to be sure that retaining the Museum would be absolutely the very best way of spending such a sum if, say, we had won the lottery, rather than putting it into recycling, energy reduction, pavement repairs, youth clubs or whatever. The Museum is clearly of great importance to the dozen or so people who have contributed to this strand, but there are other issues of equal or greater importance in the air to similar or even greater numbers of people around the Borough (there always are) - why should this one be singled out? So we would need to suggest other savings and other possible ways of spending the money as alternatives. Which ones should we include in any referendum? It is not possible to run joined-up government like that, given the complex network of considerations we face. In my view consultation does not mean finding out what people would do if a particular issue was taken in isolation and doing it, but seeing if our original reasoning was faulty or if we have missed something. That process has now started and views expressed in this strand, especially those that have suggested alternative ways of saving £400,000, have been useful. |