Will the next high profile building under threat of sale be our town hall?

• THE grim portrait painted by Councillor Andy Hull’s attack on vicious central government cuts to local policing prompts me to ask: Should not Islington council tax-payers demand a reduction or rebate next financial year (Reverse the police cuts, December 15).

While council leader Richard Watts said in correspondence to tax-payers that all frontline service (libraries and child centres) would be protected, certain statistics and financial figures just don’t add up. There appears to be some underhanded politics from Whitehall and City Hall.

Take the Greater London Authority (GLA) precept levelled at Islington council-tax payers. Islington’s “Your council tax explained” booklet says: “The GLA’s share of the council tax for a typical band D property has been increased by £4.02, or eight pence a week, allowing the Mayor to ‘help maintain police officer numbers across London and keep Londoners safe’.”

Question: By closing Highbury and proposing to close Hornsey Road police stations, how are police numbers being maintained?

Recently, I wrote to police HQ to ask for the Bunhill Neighbourhood team to investigate robberies against pensioner friends of mine, only to be told by a visiting police officer that there is no such operational police team covering the locality.

I note also, from the council tax booklet, that band D payers are still paying the Olympics precept. Just how much longer will Londoners have to keep paying for the Olympics? What was the sporting legacy for Islington? Did London 2012 ever make a profit?

As public assets such as police and fire stations are sold on the private market (for undisclosed sums) I am tempted to query whether the next high-profile public building under threat of sale will be our town hall? It would certainly make a fine hotel for some enterprising Far Eastern conglomerate intent on making a fast buck – at the expense of local democracy being further eroded at great speed.

NIGEL GANSELL
Radnor Street, EC1