DANIEL Stafford’s response to Jill Huish (Letters, January 28), must be contradicted on several points.

In common with county councillors, Mr Stafford laments the ‘unenviable’ decisions to be made by the council in the face of Government cuts. Yet by his own admission in the letter leaked before Christmas, Cllr Hudspeth ‘worked hard to assist [David Cameron] in achieving a Conservative majority’.

With the cuts already demanded from the Coalition government from 2010, Mr Cameron’s plans for austerity were hardly a secret. In spite of their crocodile tears over the necessity of hard times, Mr Hudspeth and his colleagues must share responsibility for cuts in Oxfordshire and constituents have every right to challenge their decisions.

The extent to which Mr Hudspeth was willing to stand up for Oxfordshire services against the Government was also made apparent in his tweet of December 14 in which he posted a picture of his Christmas card from the Prime Minister alongside an amusing remark about rumours of their recent falling out. I am confident that those in Oxfordshire who have lost services will feel relief at the news that Cllr Hudspeth’s meek protests have not resulted in any lasting animosity.

Mr Stafford also praises Cllr Hudspeth for ‘actively listening to Oxfordshire’s residents’. My impression from attending the public consultation meeting in Bicester on the closure of children’s centres was that any concern over the cutting of services, including the opinion that the closures were a false economy by ridding health visitors and social workers of vital support, was shut down with the curt news that we couldn’t afford it.

The fact that, a mere eight days after the consultation closed, we were told that cuts would go ahead, appears to me to show contempt for the opinions of those who spent time contributing to the process.

Mr Stafford and Mr Hudspeth are right that central Government has placed councils in an unenviable position, but those who supported and elected that government must take their share of the responsibility.

JOANNA BULLIVANT
Catterick Road
Bicester