THERE IS a well-tested adage that one should not foul one’s own nest, yet it appears that Newport Council is determined to continually foul ours. To be fair, they did send out a budget conversation to the public which received a thousand responses.

No doubt this will be found in ten year’s time in the bottom drawer of some abandoned filing cabinet. How many of the public’s proposals have the council actually taken on board? Let’s close the museum and art gallery, a fistful of libraries – after all, it’s only culture.

Let’s farm out the Riverfront Theatre to who knows who and the Newport Centre to who knows what – no-one will notice. Let’s cut pensioners’ grants, penalise the youth service and drastically chop the subsidy to vital bus services. Who cares? Economy calls. Are we having fun yet? No? Then let’s cancel all garden waste collections for three months, then charge for disposal of DIY and rubble – it should be good for a laugh.

After all, we have responded graciously to the public’s proposal to reduce drastically the number of our senior cabinet posts; we have done so...by one! And all this for the bargain price of a five per cent increase in council tax. Who says we don’t listen?

There is a definite “let them eat cake” atmosphere presiding over the civic centre that is reminiscent of Paris in 1789. Too bad we have no Bastille to storm. If only there were some building of similar prominence we could choose.

Julian R Powell, Larch Grove, Malpas, Newport