HERE’S a prediction for 2017; this week's protest against cost-saving measures at Somerset County Council will not be the last demonstration we see this year concerning cuts.

In Somerset and beyond, local authorities are struggling to meet the budgetary constraints being imposed by central government.

Already-strained council belts are being tightened further to hit target after target after target.

But where does it end?

We are all affected by these changes.

We may not be disabled, or using the social care system, but we all use buses or roads at some point, and the councils overseeing these vital services are struggling to cope.

Somerset County Gazette:

Jobs are going, services are being reduced, bus routes axed, all to meet a target.

But those relying on those services are not numbers on a balance sheet - we are people.

So often, we feel completely disengaged from matters such as council budgets, partly due to leading busy lives, but also due to the often jargon-littered, spin-loaded way in which such issues are presented.

Yet these things affect us all. And while no one would advocate a blank cheque approach, or blanket borrowing to fund anything and everything, could it be we have swayed perhaps too far in the opposite direction?

Or are these cuts necessary in an uncertain, post-Brexit, post-2008 world?

Is privatisation the way forward?

Let me know what you think...

PAUL JONES
Editor