Councillor Ben Wealthy (‘Striving to be fair for all’, Your Views, March 17) is so gushing in his praise of Harrow Council’s budget that one must presume he hasn’t actually read it.

If he had, he’d realise that Labour has just forced through one of the most ill-judged budgets in living memory.

The worst excesses occur in the capital budget — which covers major expenditure and is a bit like taking out a mortgage to pay for big projects — massively increasing the council’s debt.

Unfortunately, it does not get the same attention as the revenue budget as it only indirectly affects the council tax.

This council proposes to spend almost £35 million on behalf of the residents of Harrow next year, increasing little Harrow’s debt to more than a quarter of a billion pounds.

Councils should borrow, the same as people should borrow when they need to make big investments. Many people borrow to buy their first house. Then later, when they’ve earned more, they take out a bigger mortgage.

What you must not do is borrow more when your income is falling. That is the world of maxed-out credit cards — and that is where this Labour administration is taking us.

The council is planning to sell £17m of property over the next few years — selling the family silver — but this is nowhere near enough to fund the excesses.

It needs to borrow £23.8m more next year. But what did we expect? We saw how the Labour government operated. Spend money you don’t have and let the Conservatives pick up the mess.

And what does this mean for the future? The budget has a 2.5 per cent council tax increase planned for next year. That will not even pay for the extra interest. It seems likely that every penny of next year’s tax increase will go on interest and services will also need to be cut.

To slightly misquote Neil Kinnock; we are faced with the grotesque sight of a Labour council spending one penny in every four of our council tax to bankers, rather than on much-needed services for the community.

Councillor Tony Ferrari
Conservative (Harrow Weald)