AS WE head towards May’s council elections our report today on the financial situation faced by local authorities will perhaps make some useful background reading for all parties.

All five of the authorities in our patch have faced having to make quite staggering savings over the past five years.

This is not about us supporting one political party or another, but rather it is a snapshot of the difficult job which has been faced by all local authorities.

And not just here, of course, but across the rest of Wales and the UK as a whole.

And it is perhaps a timely reminder to all those standing for office that if they are successful then they will at times have to make some very difficult decisions. Even more so, given that there is no hint that the next few years will be any different.

Of course, some savings have been easier to achieve than others.

But all communities have seen at least some changes to local authority-run services.

For all sorts of reasons the Assembly moved away from its original idea to radically re-shape local government in Wales to reduce the number of local authorities.

But what this will mean, in our view, is that co-operation across county borders will have to become the norm.

In the end the political make-up may differ from council to council, but the need for them to work more closely together than ever before will be greater.