IT looks as if Southampton City Council residents are to be clobbered again with a 3% increase in our council tax bills.

Our monthly tax bill will soon become like a monthly mortgage payment but our incomes can’t keep pace with these inflation busting rises.

Every year the bills go up while the services decline. How long will it be before they again reduce wheelie bin collections?

Road surfaces are cracking and as winter sets in it will soon be the pothole season. There seems to be no attempt to trim verges and litter pick.

The other day I took a short drive into Test Valley where grass verges and open spaces are kept in first-class shape and the streets clean. A stark contrast to our own city which is supposed to the gateway to the world with its cruise liners.It is a disgrace and despite many protests through this letter column no efforts are being made by our civic fathers to improve the situation.

I have recently returned from a break in Belgium. There I noticed the streets were being cleaned on a Saturday. What a joy it was to also see neatly cut verges and open spaces and litter free streets. In Southampton it is a novelty to see a street being cleaned on a weekday let alone on Saturday. Litter pickers are a rare sight which seems to be normally a role carried out by volunteers.

Embarrassingly, we have became a scruffy city.

So it just makes you wonder where our hard earned tax money is going. It is clearly helping to shore up six figure salaries for council chiefs and generous town hall pensions.

As well as having to fork out more council tax residents will soon have to dig deeper into their pockets every time they drive across Northam bridge.

These days the vulnerable are always a target and it looks as if they are to suffer again with cuts in adult social care and plans to close two care homes, causing deep distress to residents who will be uprooted.

A new charge is also to be introduced for Blue Badge holders who use council owned off-street car parks, which will see them billed the same as other motorists.

The council always heap the blame on Whitehall cuts. But it is about time Southampton City Council got its own house in order and took a knife to civic excesses.

Resources should be poured into maintaining frontline workers rather than splashing out for an army of pen pushers and chiefs.

There needs to be a complete shake-up of local government, bringing more councils under one roof and cutting back on the use of outside consultants which has become a growth industry in the public sector. Redundant offices could then be sold and the money pumped back into the public good. Then perhaps we might get some value for our soaring council tax bills.

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