• LABOUR will present their budget for Camden Council on February 27 and currently, they plan to cut weekly bin collections in half for almost every street north of Camden Town, to save a mere £821,000 per year, just £8 per household.

It will be interesting to see which “services” Labour plans to keep instead of bin collections. Cutting the Camden magazine, a partisan mouthpiece for Labour councillors funded by £165,000 a year of taxpayers’ money, could save enough money to restore a full weekly bin collection service for the whole of West Hampstead and Fortune Green.

Camden uses your money directly to fund three full-time trade union officials. Cutting them and having them paid out of union dues, as is normal in every other industry, would save the taxpayer another £136,000: about enough to restore bin collections to Swiss Cottage and Belsize wards.

Camden could impose proper fines on fly-tippers, as in neighbouring boroughs. It could make planning services cost-neutral by charging higher fees for basement applications. And it cost Camden £250,000 a year to keep 156 West End Lane empty while Camden pushed for its development.

These are choices, and Labour have chosen to end weekly collections instead. It’s not hard to balance the budget if you’re prepared to put the needs of the public above the needs of party politics.

CYRUS PARVIN, IAN COHEN, DAVID BRESCIA, HELEN HARRIS, NICK GRIERSON, CHARLOTTE KUDE
West Hampstead & Fortune Green Conservatives