Council sheds everything

A council employee illustrates how much extra cash

has been allocated to public services for 2011

Under unprecedented financial pressure, Petersfield’s local council has published a list of cuts it plans to make to public services. This isn't it:

1. Hundreds of unwanted wooden sheds, bought at great expense for the Christmas Festival a few years ago and now rotting in a lock-up off Bedford Road, will be converted into green burial caskets and leased to the dead on a timeshare basis. Hurry while stocks last.

2. Petersfield Library is to move into a converted wooden shed from East Hampshire District Council’s (EHDC) Christmas stockpile. The library will also be merged with the hearing-aid shop so half the customers will spend all day going "shussh" while the others reply "pardon?". Saves £6,000.

3. £22,000 cut from Residents Home Improvement grants. Future applicants will be given a wooden shed and told "stop moaning or we'll rehouse you in Havant".

4. Corners will be cut in Petersfield town centre as the Market Square is reduced by 25 per cent and renamed the Market Triangle. Planners recognise the kebab van will be unable to navigate the new 60 degree corners so EHDC has kindly offered the use of a replacement wooden shed.

5. £9,000 of cash put behind the bars of councillors' chosen pubs every year is to be withdrawn. The money was handed over to "ensure members of the public could use the pub toilets" like they can in, say, a pub. Instead it will be used for councillors’ tipples…

6. A fleet of limousines used to take every member of council staff to and from Overspennds Place, out to Monoloco for lunch and off to the pub to "use the lavatory" is to be replaced by sheds on wheels, driven by pixies.

A spokesman for the council said: "Don't blame me - you voted the buggers in!"

Lost: Library noticeboard for lost and found

Action from one of the library's many exercise classes

Yoga teachers, odd-job gardeners and coffee-morning organisers are up in arms over the temporary closure of Petersfield Library.

"Where else are we going to pin up our badly designed, ill though-out and appallingly spelt notices for classes and events that haven’t been running for around 18 months?” squealed Maud Simpkins, yoga mistress and part-time landscaper.

“There’s also the issue of where all the old codgers are going to go to keep warm – we’re talking about January you know!”

Members of the official Post Office queue have suggested the library notice board could be moved out into the square to give them something to snigger about during the long, dark hours of waiting for a stamp.

The refurbished library is due to re-open in summer 2010 complete with coffee shop, hairdresser’s section and estate agency.

Spokesman Roger Reader said: “We had to do something to bump up numbers and a working group identified the lack of these facilities in the town.

“Books? Well, we might still have a few left in the corner – but try Amazon. Theirs aren’t all dog-eared with pages stuck together with unidentifiable substances – plus they’ll bring them straight to your door and you won’t have to bring them back when you’ve finished reading them. I don’t know why we didn’t think of that…”