Chris Underwood of Shepherd's Bush has been watching recent coverage of Hammersmith and Fulham's response to the prospect of making further budget cuts. He notes Stephen Greenhalgh, leader of the Tory flagship borough, speaking of needing to make savings amounting to £55 million over the next four years. This took me eerily back to the financial crisis that rocked my home borough of Hackney around ten years ago, following a period of political chaos.
The comparison is very far from precise but the respective numbers bear a moment's reflection. The [Labour] government of the time was alarmed to find that Hackney might be in debt by up to £21 million and was considering taking direct control.
A decade has gone by since then, Hammersmith and Fulham is not in the red and Greenhalgh's estimate of reducing spending by £55 million is for a four year period. Even so, you can see that in other circumstances the size of the cuts he has in mind could easily be described as a crisis measure - and we might be seeing similar programmes all over London. Greenhalgh also spoke of selling off Council property to make ends meet. Hackney did exactly the same. Stringent pruning or full scale emergency?
