Cinema support

I write regarding Whispering Smith’s column (March 13, page six) and Chris’s comments regarding my support of the Windmill.
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I have always supported the Windmill, but not at any cost.

Inspire Leisure controls and manages the Windmill and it was their decision to close it and their decision to re-open it. Of course, we have cut Inspire’s grant for managing leisure facilities, but as the Windmill had lost money (£125k per year) for the past seven years, the operation needed major surgery to make it cost efficient.

Inspire Leisure is a public trust and any of the readers of the Littlehampton Gazette can apply to be trustees, including Mr Smith. If you feel you have skills to offer the trust then I urge you to apply.

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Arun’s grant from Government has been cut by 35 per cent since 2010, and there is another 10 per cent cut in the pipeline, so we have had to look at our costs and expenditure as have many businesses and organisations as well.

Many of your readers would have worked and brought up families through the 1950s-1970s.

Life was no walk in the park then; money was tight and people lived without luxuries.

We have to return to hard-nosed economics and only spend what we have and deliver cost-effective public services without the harmful borrowing binge of the mid-1990s to the crash of 2009.

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Many young families are going through a tough time at the moment.

We are freezing council tax to ensure that we are doing our part in rebuilding our damaged economy.

So Mr Smith, we cannot spend what we don’t have.

We are not duplicitous, just hard-nosed.

Paul Dendle

Arundel ward and cabinet member for the environment on Arun District Council

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