On 05/12/2017 09:02, Bob Henson wrote:
jbm wrote:

On 04/12/2017 23:07, Ed Cryer wrote:


And tell your friend that many public libraries have computer rooms
these days, where you can use one for free.
Our one gives you a 1-hour slot.

Ed


You're lucky. Where I live in the UK they start charging you as soon as
you sit down - £1 for every 20 minutes.


Wow! That's steep. In Gloucestershire they're all free one hour slots. You
even get free volunteer computer buddies to help if you're struggling. The
only thing they charge for is printing.




I knew I was living in the wrong part of the country. This is
Northamptonshire, the county that has to make £10M savings/cuts by
Christmas. To that end, they are proposing to cut all bus subsidies in
the county, close 28 of the existing 38 libraries (so we won't need to
pay for computer use after that) and slash the adult social services
budget. They then have to find a further £28M savings/cuts by the end of
the financial year - April 5th 2018. Oh! They are also forcing every
single one of their staff to take an extra one day unpaid leave over the
Xmas period!!!

The ruling Tory County Council took the decision not to raise Council
Tax levels for 10 of the last 14 years, so they were then able to boast
that this county had the lowest level of Council Tax in the whole
country, at the expense of not raising some extra £60M in revenue over
that time. And now they are bleating that do not have enough money to
pay for the services they are supposed to provide. There is now serious
talk that they are only going to be able to supply services that they
are legally obliged/compelled to provide. This is a rural shire county,
so it is virtually impossible that the ruling administration will change
in the near (or for that matter distant) future. And just to rub real
brine into the wounds, they have just spent over £50M on a new
headquarters for themselves, saying they could close and sell off 12
otherwise redundant properties around the county. The move to the new
building was carried out several weeks (months?) ago, but not one of
those 12 old building are yet empty, nor are any of them on the market
for sale. Where do we go?

jim