Wyre Forest council tax payers face a bill of £1,500 to stage a pointless council meeting this week. The meeting has been called by Health Concern leader Howard Martin in order to table two resolutions. The first concerns the post office closures announced recently for Wyre Forest.
Mark Garnier, together with local Conservatives, first brought this issue to the attention of local residents on the 17th May 2007 - a full16 months before Health Concern turned their attention to it - by way of a press release. It was then mentioned on a total of 5 press releases, and in numerous leaflets. But it was only recently that we first heard anything from Howard Martin and his team - over a year after Mark Garnier established himself as the leader of the campaign to stop the closures.
The second is a call for an abolition of prescription charges across England.
Mark Garnier comments: "I worry that the local tax payer is being asked to fund Howard Martin's desire to be seen as a local campaigner. In his recent announcement of Health Concern's name change, he stated that Health Concern is a party that consults the public and acts for local people on local issues. Yet he is 16 months behind the curve on post offices and has never consulted on anything at all. By calling an extraordinary council meeting, he is spending taxpayer's money on showboating. I fear that he is not acting in the local resident's best interests."
Turning to prescription charges, Mark Garnier continued: "I welcome any contribution to the debate on any national issue. However, Mr Martin appears to have forgotten one very important issue here: how is he proposing to pay for these free prescriptions? It is all very well offering free prescriptions, but he needs to be clear whether he proposes to cut clinical care to fund it; increase general taxation; or increase government borrowing.