I HAVE not voted in any local elections since the start of the recession — I just don’t see the point.

Prior to the banking crisis, I voted for the candidates I thought would best serve my community, irrespective of which party they represented.

I stopped voting in local elections because I quickly realised that the cutbacks in funding to local authorities — including Trafford — would be so severe that each and every council would quickly lose control of their budgets as they imposed the savage cuts needed to balance the books.

Sadly, I have been proved correct.

It’s a bit too easy and simplistic to complain about Trafford cutting services. There is a limited amount of money to go around, made worse by the Tory government in Westminster making it impossible for councils to raise more cash by upping the Council Tax.

You could argue about the services Trafford has chosen to axe, but if it wasn’t them, it would be somewhere else.

You only have to look around the North West to see councils controlled by Labour have had to cut as well.

This isn’t just a Trafford problem.

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