The Surrey Police Force themselves continue to provide all the evidence needed to prove that they are irresponsible in the use of both money and man/woman power.

The Staines Local Guardian reports on a visit to of all places a childrens nursery. A handful of pre-school children receive the full attention of a policeman, a policewoman and a large police vehicle, to provide ‘the bells and the smells’, probably for half a day.

What conceivable contribution can that time and money have made to crime busting, now or ever? I never see any publicity given to visits to secondary schools, presumably they do not get visited. I wonder why?

That is surely the age group that could benefit from advice on just how easily they can blight the rest of their lives by starting along a path of crime by ill considered impulsive actions.

The other wastrels, our local councillors, will no doubt soon start their annual pleading that they need more of our money and claiming just how good are the services local government provides.

Again, at every turn, their actions, publicised by their Public Relations Departments, show that is anything but the case.

In Spelthorne, and elsewhere in Surrey from what one can read in the local press, the highways, roads and pavements are in a terrible state of disrepair.

The national press shows this is not an isolated problem but affects a large part of the country. But even then my local observations show that some authorities are much worse than others in ensuring that the best use is made of the money they spend.

Local press publicity eventually shamed Surrey County Council in to replacing worn away road markings at a junction where three accidents had happened in a couple of months. But you do not have to venture far to find other road markings all but worn away.

Another sad saga involved a cheap jack, health hazarding, dust creating, tar and stone chippings top dressing exercise. Finished off by belatedly painting yards of yellow lines where there should not have been any. They were removed by grinding off the paint and the newly laid stone chippings and leaving the stones to block the drains and break windscreens.

A traffic light pole, in what estate agents call a much sought after Sunbury street, has been kept roughly vertical with a piece of broken paving slab for months. Funnily, the local residents who oppose every new planning application on the grounds that it would be out of keeping with the local environment, do not seem to see that or many other things needing council action). No more money for roads until they spend what they already have wisely.

Council Publications are another hole which swallows our taxes. Not only are there the “editoral” staff costs and "overheads" but there are the printing and distribution costs. All for hundreds of unnecessary publications.

The local county and borough political propaganda magazines, always it seems delivered late, are the ones we all see. A trip to one’s local library will reveal many other unnecessary publications of minority interest or of no interest at all, left on the shelf till they are hopelessly out of date and to end up adding to the recycling tonnage. Who on this earth can possibly defend Surrey County Councils production of a book of country walks, at any time, let alone when they have been complaining for years how they are short of money.

Recycling the great excuse for another orgy of spending our taxes. Is there any adult in the land who is so lacking in self esteem that that they do not know that they could have made a better job of increasing recycling than the expensive mess our local and national government bureaucrats hve made of the task.

Too big bins to many, too small bins to others. Bins that were not needed. Mixed collection of reccycling materials. Who but a fool would start a recycling operation by mixing all the different materials together and then crushing them together in a refuse wagon so they have to be expensively separated.

Who but a fool would not have seen the hostlity their high handed ill thought out arrangements would generate. You can already see an increase in fly-tipping at every turn, something they already cannot control. Who but a fool would have failed to realise that the starting point for the recycling campaign had to be with packaging. Less of it and designed for recycling. Less composite packaging. Facilities to recycle plastics. Markings on plastics big enough to be read without a powerful magnifying glass and 20x20 vision.

What an expensive mess we are in and this is just a start before the more local authorities start officiously enforcing their recycling rules and hounding those least likely to retaliate whilst letting the real offenders alone.

Highways, publications and recycling all areas indisputably showing how local councillors and local council officers waste our hard earned cash. Enough I suggest to cap council tax at 0% until they do start doing an acceptable job of work.

That is not an end to their mis-management, but more can wait till another day."