Letter: The audacity of the Liberal Democrats never ceases to amaze

The audacity of the Liberal Democrats and particularly Councillor Simon Clement-Jones never ceases to amaze.

His recent accusation, Star, November 26, of financial blunders against Labour because of the “bail out” of the Sheffield City Trust beats the lot.

His accusations could not be further from the truth.

First of all he fails to inform your readers that when the Liberal Democrats ran this City and he was the cabinet member for finance, the council ‘subsidised’ the Sheffield City Trust to the tune of £5.4 million and continued to do so during their entire period in office.

Since Labour won back the city this ‘subsidy’ has been halved. If there are any epic blunders or arrogance and financial incompetence perhaps it should laid at Coun Clement-Jones’s door.

Since Labour won back the City from the Lib Dems they have been working closely with the City Trust to reduce the cost of our services run by the Trust with the aim of a break-even. It has been reduced from the £5.4m to £2.8m and these figures can be checked in the city’s accounts.

However, perhaps we should not be talking about ‘subsidy’ as it is the cost of the fantastic public services provided for the people of Sheffield by our council.

As someone who uses the Concord Sorts Centre regularly, I see the wonderful community activities that take place there and all the efforts put in to improve the health, fitness and wellbeing of the people in one of our areas of deprivation in Sheffield.

I know also that there are 17 schools that use Ponds Forge and many swimming and diving clubs in addition to normal public access.

Add to that the thousands of our citizens who use the Hillsborough Leisure Centre, Ice Sheffield, English Institute of Sport, the Arena and three of our golf courses and we have an amazing array of public facilities which Sheffield City Counci and the Trust provides and it is important they are kept for the many not the few.