WASTE OF MONEY
Written January 2026
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Some time ago I complained
to Hampshire County Council about potholes outside my gate in
our village and I was very surprised to see a chap outside less
than hour later examining the problem. I asked him how it was
that he'd reacted so swiftly to my message and he said he'd been
in the area and been asked to come and see the potholes. Of course
Hampshire County Council isn't our local one.. this is New Forest
District Council so immediately one suspects duplication of jobs
and a waste of money.
Nevertheless the response to
my complaint was first class although the road inspector chap
did say the location in a village lane makes it a low priority.
Fair enough as there are lots
of roads much more important than ours. The reason I complained
was that it was pretty noisy with cars and vans etc noisily crashing
through the potholes. Many years ago our lane was unmade and
we had to fill in any holes ourselves. I didn't mind but eventually
the local council decided to adopt the lane and we paid them
£2,000 for having it tarmacked.
Of course over the years various
excavations had been carried out such as laying a new gas main
and the remedial work was never as good as the original surface
so holes appeared where the trenches had been filled. Repairs
had been made a few times but these weren't even as good as previous
repairs so holes kept re-appearing.
Anyway, after a couple of months
a neighbour arrived with a truck and filled in the worst of the
holes with stones. This resulted in a smoother but scruffy surface
and then after another couple of weeks a couple of chaps arrived
and marked the rough area with white lines from a spray can.
Eventually the white lines wore away and another, much larger
team arrived and spent nearly a whole day looking at the potholes
and marking them afresh with green paint.
The next day an enormous team
arrived in lots of lorries and spent most of the day repairing
the potholes. I'm not particularly impressed with the end result,
but to give them their due it was raining pretty heavily all
day. There are several more chaps standing by two more lorries
further up the road.
The way they fill in the holes
means that when they use the small machine that flattens the
surface the deepest bits are depressed which is obvious when
it rains and puddles collect.
The full garden waste bin by
the front gate has been there for a week waiting to be emptied.
The last time this happened I had to send them a photograph to
indicate where it was parked so this time its standing in the
road.
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Written February 2025
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For many years I've been conscious
of ever-increasing living costs
but being quite busy I've done nothing much about this but now
I've retired from my business and enjoying more free time I'm
looking into some of the reasons behind rising costs.
Lately there's been lots on
the news about council tax. For example, we were asked to vote
Labour on the promise that "council tax would not rise by
even a single penny". Currently I don't actually know what
my council tax bill for 2025-2026 will be, but I have checked
to see what it was last year. The general view is that there's
a maximum limit to the annual rise of "less than 5%"
which seems to be taken as 4.99%. This isn't too clear though
because there appears to be two figures involved viz. 2.99% and
2% which seem to add up to 4.99%. I checked to see what I paid
last year and compared that with the current year ie. 2024-2025
and it seems the increase was 6.5%. So what's going on??
I contacted our local authority
New Forest District Council which is part of Hampshire County
Council and was informed that both are adhering strictly to the
letter of the law, but wayward parish councils are not at all
constrained. In fact they can spend whatever they want. As an
example our Bransgore Parish Council, over the last two years,
increased spending by nearly 80%.
I'm taking this up with them
at the moment to see if they can justify this.
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Now, turning to Hampshire
County Council who I understand are heading for bankruptcy according
to the news. Something untoward must be happening which is leading
to budget problems. "Looking after the pennies and the pounds
will look after themselves" is a good rule of thumb, and
it didn't take long to find a clear case of wasting money. We've
all heard of "Social Media" but what is this and how
did it materialise? It's a simple answer.. it's just a clever
way of making money. Numerous companies started up.. not for
the public good but purely to make money. Forget about helping
society and benefits to the population at large.. it's merely
a fantastic way of making money through advertising.
So how does this link to Hampshire
County Council? I was searching for anything relating to Bransgore
Parish Council and discovered they run two websites. Fair enough
I'll allow the government sponsored website, but not one of their
own creation because it can likely waste pots of money. In looking
further though.. I spotted that Hampshire County Council has
their own Youtube account. If you didn't know.... Youtube is
a massive money-making enterprise run by Google. Not only that
but HCC runs other social media accounts as well. I noticed Facebook,
X and Tik Tok for starters. They might say that these presences
are essential.. but to whom exactly? Well, the answer is partly
provided by the viewing figures. One of their huge number of
Youtube videos was watched by 46 people.. and no doubt this figure
will include HCC employees (probably 45 of them... the other
being me).
I'm taking all this up with
them at the moment to see if they can justify this.
After lots of emails requesting
information they said they spent nothing and then after querying
this just declined to provide any fgures, saying it was impossible
because it included too many people.
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Next, I'll look into the affairs
of New Forest District Council who issue my council tax bill.
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For example.. What precisely
is "Council Tax" and does it include things not contrained
to a maximum of 4.99% yearly increase. I understood the entire
figure was constrained to a 4.99% increase but somehow the council
moved some expenditure into non-council tax buckets which are
deemed therefore not to be constrained by the 5% limit. |
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