READER LETTER: Southampton was great in the 1960s and now it's gone to pot
By Daily Echo Reporter
Things were a little different in Southampton in the 1960s.
BACK in the 1960s and prior to that time, Southampton was a borough town.
The administration, Southampton Corporation, ran all the services, street cleaning and weekly household refuse collections, libraries in all districts fully staffed. An education committee managed all the schools with its own inspectorate. Public bus services with drivers, conductors and inspectors covered a multitude of routes. There was a borough police force with bobbies patrolling the beat and also a borough fire brigade. The parks department managed open spaces and gardens, which were the envy of many other towns in the area as they were so well kept.
The corporation also employed the road maintenance teams to keep roads and pavements together.
No outsourcing to private organisations back then!
Our sports centre was well patronised by athletic clubs, and used to be kept in good order by a team of groundsmen, along with the paddling pool and boating pond where one could hire paddle boats for loads of fun. We had the municipal Victorian seawater baths with an outdoor Lido behind, favoured by many townsfolk especially on hot summer days, the water heated from the outfall from Southampton`s own power station.
People paid rates on their property to the borough finance department, and there were numerous council-run housing estates throughout the town providing homes to many Sotonians.
Southampton even had its own annual show on the Common complete with flower tent, displays and exhibits. It also arranged an annual carnival which, in its heyday, stretched from the town quay to the Common, and much more besides!
Southampton was awarded city status in 1964 and became a unitary authority in 1997.
Since then our city finances seemed to have gone to pot and we can no longer afford to do things without selling off the family silver, buildings, land and such like, cutting costs and facilities, and handing over the running of services to privately run businesses such as Capita for administration, housing associations to manage property, privately built schools, renting back to the council at high cost... and so it goes on, all businesses, of course, making a profit on the deal!
The council tax annually keeps rising, but the services being provided are lessening and being cut back.
So what has gone so wrong and where is the money generated from income going?
There seems to be some bad financial management going on within the current Labour administration that has put us in this precarious predicament, and it can’t all be blamed on the Tory government cuts!
Richard A Jacob
Southampton
medieval names The City of Southampton Around 1960 - Courtesy of Mr Stuart Wilson | |
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