This asset-stripping PFI scheme was sold on the basis it would provide private finance for our services, but, as the figures below show, the contractors' costs and profits take most of the funds and they now control our schools for 32 years.

Construction/refurbishment charges for 40-plus Northampton schools: £230million.

Maintenance charges to single controlling PFI company: £122million.
Facility management charges to PFI company £263million.

Other management charges for "project management etc": £75million.
Financing charges, loans etc: £163million.

Total costs we pay over 32 years: £853million.

All figures supplied by Northamptonshire County Council.

The council, in trying to sell off our school fields to Barratts to cover costs, failed to finalise that deal and could lose us tens of £millions.

This council will now be lucky to find any buyer, let alone one prepared to pay the figure they originally expected to receive.

We now lose three ways: we are paying over the odds for the PFI financing scam; we are losing playing fields and open spaces to pay for the PFI projects; and, the council has failed to realise the value of the fields to be sold.

It becomes more certain we will have to find up to £50 million from cuts in services, from loans or through increases in taxes to cover this fiasco.

We in SOS ask why should the public should pay for the failures of the council and PFI financing?

At the very least an independent public inquiry should be held to determine the facts of the situation and to report back its findings and recommendations for possible remedies, including scrapping the scheme.

Such a public inquiry might even suggest that since all three parties supported this PFI scheme and are jointly responsible for this fiasco, the councillors should be surcharged and step down from office.
Ron Mendel,
Save Our Services, Northamptonshire.

Council should support bike run
Can I thank the Chron for the excellent coverage you gave to the dilemma that myself and the other organisers face over my April Fools' Harley Bike Run.

The Chron has given the event some really good publicity since we started the run some five years ago.

We have raised over £12,500 for the Cynthia Spencer Hospice and that money is used directly for patient care.

The run gives a great deal of pleasure to local people.

Now the run is in jeopardy because of Northampton Borough Council's demand that we have public liability insurance of some £5m on the grounds that – according to Councillor Glynane – it would be "irresponsible" to do otherwise.

The borough council bangs on about attracting people to the town centre . . . why can't it support this bike run which has supported a worthwhile local charity and given pleasure to many people.

Please think again Northampton Borough Council and do something that the people want. Their support of the bike run over the years is clear for all to see.
Councillor Terry Wire,
St James Ward, Northamptonshire County Council.

Folly to create a police state here
Evidently Geoff Howes thinks we should forget about the civil liberties that have been our birthright in this country since Magna Carta and sign up for the national security state envisaged for us by this New Labour government and its fellow travellers (Viewpoint, June 17).

To bring a party political perspective that is typically ahistorical and simplistic to what are decidedly complex issues in an attempt score points against the opposition is cynical sloganeering at its worst.

For Geoff Howes's information, those who like David Davis oppose further draconian measures to extend detention without charge and have reservations about DNA profiling and CCTV in the fight against crime, are neither soft on terrorism nor crime.

Neither New Labour nor Geoff Howes have a monopoly on knowing what is good for this country or the right to impugn the integrity of those who disagree with them.

History teaches us that politicians who fail to deliver on their promises have a habit of becoming more authoritarian the longer they remain in office.

Likewise, it is inescapable that politicians intent on fighting wars of conquest against weaker nations will vastly inflate the threat such states represent against us.

After nearly a decade we still only have the rather dubious official accounts of what happened on 9/11 and 7/7 with which to substantiate the true level of the threat.

It would certainly be folly to follow President Bush, New Labour and Geoff Howes into new wars abroad and a police state here at home.
Guy Nicholls,
Elmhurst Court, Spinney Hill, Northampton.

Freedom goes without a fight
Re Mike Papworth's letter (C&E, June 18), A dictatorship in all but name, well done Mr Papworth for highlighting the above.

I think we now qualify to be called a dictatorship, following the final act of treachery by the Government which has overseen the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty. This without a referendum being given because they know it's against the wishes of the people.

Gone is democracy. I find it strange between 1939-1945 we were fighting for our freedom. Fifty years ago we were giving our Empire its freedom.

Now we are giving ours away, might I add without a fight.

Now the opposition needs to keep its promise to give us a referendum, although it may need to be changed to read renegotiation or to leave Europe altogether.

God bless the Irish Republic!
V Graham-Hole,
Elgin Street, St James, Northampton.

Residents denied input into plan
On June 22, a well-attended public meeting was held in my ward regarding the re-development of Robinson House.

Unsurprisingly, there is a palpable growing sense of anger towards this Lib Dem administration from local residents.

The lack of consultation, lack of information and sheer lack of common courtesy being shown to the people whose daily lives will be affected by this, is extraordinary.

Thus far the borough council has not sent out any information to the local residents, nor has it attended any meetings, nor has it allowed affected residents any input into the already well-advanced plans for the re-development.

Did the Lib-Dems at the Guildhall really think that after my challenge of a call-in, local people would just melt away into the background and quietly agree to what Councillors Woods and Beardsworth et al had already decided? How wrong they are!

This letter is a plea for a sea-change in the attitude so far displayed towards the residents of Lumbertubs in particular and more generally the entire Eastern District.

Unless such a change is immediately forthcoming, I can foresee a legal challenge that could so easily have been avoided.

It won't just be the long suffering people of Lumbertubs ward who pay the price for the arrogance of this administration, it will be all of the council tax payers of the borough.

So come on Guildhall, have some sense! Do the right thing even if it is at the last moment. It's not rocket science, after all. All you have to do to put things right is bring on a robust, transparent and genuinely meaningful public engagement on Robinson House.

No more decisions behind closed doors, start attending Robinson House Action Group meetings and, finally, begin listening to the people who voted you into office. It's called democracy.
Councillor Joy Capstick,
Labour, Lumbertubs ward, Northampton Borough Council.