Newbury Town Council
announced in a press release that they haven't yet awarded their grounds maintenance contract. I assume there must be some point in announcing this so I think the idea is to get it out there that 1. they're going to award the contract to the previous contractor, 2. it'll cost more than before, and 3. the precept will be going up.
Last year saw a 6% real terms increase in the precept and over the last six years it's crept up by 12.4% in real terms all without the Council actually doing anything more. It's not difficult to find
33% of savings on the precept which actually improve the community without losing any of the services so I find it depressing to see the Council signalling business as usual.
It's also a bit odd to see the Council bigging up their current grounds maintenance contractor when the selection process needs to be seen to be impartial.
QUOTE
The work of the current contractor is often praised, particularly with regard to litter clearance and the floral displays.
gushes the press release, but it's the Council themselves
that heap the praise. An objective test would be to see how well we do in Britain in Bloom, and sad to say we pulled out of the scheme because we were judged to be doing so miserably.