What’s wrong with our local councillors? They keep telling us how poor we are, and yet they repeatedly make the most short-sighted decisions about spending our council tax.

Your report of the county council cuts (Wednesday’s Oxford Mail) says that the council will cut domestic support to 500 vulnerable pensioners and adds that “the service will now be transferred to private companies, saving between £1.5m and £2.5m a year”.

How can money be saved by transferring services to private companies, which will be doing the job to make profit, not save us money?

Councillor Louise Chapman, who is responsible for the youth service, assures us it is all right to shut 21 youth centres because more youth clubs will be run “through community initiatives”.

But she doesn’t tell us where to find the volunteers to run 21 youth clubs.

Your report also says that building a new rubbish tip at Kidlington and closing down others elsewhere will save £750,000.

But why build a new tip at Kidlington (at a cost, I am told, of £3m) when there is already a perfectly serviceable one at Redbridge which the council intends to close to householders for five days per week?

It is as illogical as the city council deciding not to refurbish Temple Cowley Swimming Pool but insisting on building a new pool for £8.5m at Blackbird Leys, which Leys people don’t seem to want.

Tony Augarde, Carlton Road, Oxford