Budget proposals from Hampshire County Council are indeed a huge worry for many thousands of residents. 

As Michael Newman said (Chronicle, Letters, February 29) current HCC proposals are shocking. 

Cutting services on which hundreds of thousands of residents depend is appalling and should not be happening. 

Your leader that day rightly said the HCC budget cuts are (very largely) due to vastly reduced central government funding since 2010. 

HCC has protested to central government and shown how services will be cut unless there’s a better funding system for all local government. HCC and central government are led by the same party which appears to have ignored all calls since 2010 for sensible funding in Hampshire and elsewhere in England. 

We cannot afford to neglect homeless people, or our children with special educational needs, or older and vulnerable people, or to have our school budgets pared to the bone. And every pothole we see and hit in the county’s roads is due to inadequate funding available to Hampshire County Council. 

Colin Smith,
St Cross Road, 
Winchester 

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