THANKS for featuring the success of the local people, young and old, in saving Unsworth library from closure. This is just the beginning of a response by Bury residents to protect our valued services.

Wherever you go, you hear of proposals to cut jobs, pay and services that we have painstakingly built up over the past 40 years: services for children in our new children’s centres and schools, services for disabled people and for elderly people, provision for homeless people and for vulnerable families.

Council staff have been asked to take a three-day holiday without pay to help balance the books, but this will not be enough to prevent people losing their jobs. Many services will be closed or transferred to private providers.

The proposals to cut housing benefits are likely to increase homelessness at the very time when families may find they can no longer pay their mortgages. Where are the plans to increase provision for the homeless?

Many young people planning to sit their GCSEs will find that there is no financial help for them to go on to college to study for A levels. The Education Maintenance Allowance was there to help families to support teenagers through further education. It is a tragedy for talented young people to be forced out of education because of the cuts to EMA.

So, thanks for reminding us that it is possible for ordinary people to stand up and say “no” to plans they know will damage their community. We have a proud record in Bury, going back to the Action Group in 1976, of resisting decisions we know to be wrong.

There is an alternative, and it will include our elected councillors refusing to cut vital services and asking the Government to think again. If we are all in this together, then cuts can be made to the Trident nuclear weapons system and to the bonuses of the rich.

Sue Arnall