Northamptonshire - three sides to the story?

There are three sides to every story - each of the opposing viewpoints, and the truth, which often falls somewhere in between.

With this in mind, I've been giving a lot of thought to the current state of Northamptonshire County Council, and where the county as a whole now finds itself.

We've been told that the mess we're in is purely down to incompetence at county council level.

But what if it isn't as simple as that?  What if that's only part of the reason, and the other part is because of a lack of fair funding, leading to a 'perfect storm' situation?

If that is indeed the case, what concerns me is that without additional money from central government, how can the two new proposed unitary authorities possibly succeed?

I've read an article which stated 10 other councils are under financial strain, and have seen NCC referred to as the 'canary in the mine', with people waiting to see what happens here.

So while of course it can be acknowledged that there has been some incompetence, I think it's time to also consider how a lack of funding has made the situation even worse.

Lack of funding for public services appears to be rife - for example, anyone who works or has children in the current state education system knows there's a lack of funding there.  The NHS is under terrible strain, there have been huge cutbacks in Policing.  But because everybody's focus remains on Brexit - when will that ever end? - attention has been elsewhere.

But local people, affected every day by loss of bus services, poor road maintenance, closing libraries, and indeed all of their public services cut to the bone, aren't going to forget in a hurry what's happened here in Northamptonshire.

I've even been told 'I've voted Tory all my life, but never again, not after what's gone on in this county, it's a disgrace.'

When there's rumblings like that in the shire, it's time for people to listen and make some changes, or face the inevitable consequences.