I TOTALLY agree with your Opinion column (November 6) where you ask what councils are for, with reference to the “merger of services and possible job losses it entails”.

Well, surely councils are about public service – serving the community. They are not the same as selling tins of baked beans or chocolate biscuits, which is what central government seems to think.

To add to this issue of mergers the county council are proposing to privatise most of their services with loss of 1,500 staff. That is 1,500 families, which is likely to have a devastating impact on the local economy.

Now, with the issue of privatisation, as far as I’m aware, we the voters have never been given the opportunity to vote for or against it, so that is a concern for democracy.

Now, privatisation does not have a particularly good track record. Take railways – very expensive with overcrowded carriages.

Energy is now mainly controlled by just six energy giants who keep prices high even when the costs to them are reduced, resulting in many people now living in energy poverty.

So, overall, privatisation means higher costs and poorer services.

With the recent fiasco about the river bridge in Evesham, then if this is an example of the county’s dealings with the private sector then we have a lot to fear.

So the future looks like we could have reduced services or higher council taxes or most likely both.

After all, the private sector will want to make profits and then there is the extra required administration that the county will have to put in place such as a new director to take on a lead in outsourcing services earning £117,151, and that is just one extra officer that they will need. Crazy, isn’t it?

Andrew Dyke

Bishampton

Pershore