Sustainability for health and social care services can only be achieved by a real commitment to integration, not by the government's chronic underfunding and a crude focus on cuts and closures. That's the message of a forceful recent column by Mayor Dave Hodgson in the Times and Citizen newspaper.
Bedford Borough Council is taking further action to balance the books in the face of brutal government cuts in funding for local services.
Bedford Borough Council is taking further action to balance the books in the face of brutal government cuts in funding for local services.
Mayor Dave Hodgson has welcomed the merger of the South East Midlands Local Enterprise Partnership (SEMLEP) and Northamptonshire Enterprise Partnership (NEP), which recently received approval from Government.
In his column for the September issue of the Bedford Bulletin, Mayor Dave Hodgson has written about the bad deal which Bedford's rail users get on the Thameslink line. He calls on the government, which has 'considerable powers at its disposal', to start doing its bit on behalf of beleaguered commuters.
Mayor Dave Hodgson has said that the flawed work of the Bedfordshire and Milton Keynes Healthcare Review, which culminated in proposals to close maternity services at Bedford Hospital, must be scrapped altogether and not continued within the successor STP (Sustainability and Transformation Plan) process.
