Many people will be shocked to discover that Poole has a ‘stash’ of £8.3 million in general reserves (Daily Echo, June 19) especially as there was a surplus of £3.4 million in 2009/10.

For some years now Poole council has bitterly complained that the previous government unfairly starved the borough of funds, even going to the extent of taking a petition to the former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, in Downing Street. Year after year Cllr Leverett, leader of the council, insisted that the town was being done down by the government, conveniently ignoring the fact that Poole is one of the wealthiest boroughs in the country. Against all the evidence he insisted that Poole was being starved of funds by a Labour government intent on ‘punishing’ a Tory town. Now we have the truth, which is that Cllr Leverett could have settled for a nil council tax increase last year and still have been in credit. The advent of a Tory/Lib Dem government has resulted in a cut this year of £2.9 million. Can we expect Cllr Leverett to protest in the strongest terms at this ‘unfair’ treatment being suffered by Poole? Will there be petitions and protests to Parliament? Or is it simply that the constant bleating about underfunding was nothing more than a hardy annual political gimmick? As a footnote, shouldn’t Poole council be ashamed that its children’s social care was underspent by £500,000 in the year? Or is it just very bad budgeting?

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