SO we hear from the horse’s mouth- Cambridgeshire County Council Chief Executive Mark Lloyd- about the scale and severity of local government cuts.

His interview with BBC Radio Cambridgeshire was revealing for many reasons but notably the statement that the Government is only partly to blame for the scale of cuts.

“I would be a liar if I said that it’s all because of Government grant cuts,” he said. “These do matter but that’s not the only factor. The second biggest amount of savings is as a consequence of changes in our population in Cambridgeshire.”

So of the �50 million worth of cuts planned in the coming year only �18.4 million are a result of Government subsidy withdrawal.

Inevitably there are consequences of a growing population and inevitably consequences of an ageing population.

But these are changes which did not just happen overnight. It has been, and continues to be, a steady evolution of change but brought into sharp focus by the council’s decision to throw all the eggs in their basket up into the air at once and only catch (or allow back in) those they like the most.

No one disputes the need for prudent economics but the rapidity of change in Cambridgeshire and the massive axe being taken to services the length and breadth of the county could be considered by some to be excessive in such a short period.

There’s an argument for change and councillors believe they have embraced the vision for the changes they now intend to make.

It would take wiser minds than we possess to safely argue if they have jumped too far, too soon or to predict the consequences.