Can't even pronounce it's name! (From Malvern Gazette)

Can't even pronounce it's name!

10:25am Friday 3rd August 2007 in Letters

Thank you for not losing interest nor sacrificing coverage now the immediate threat to the Malvern outdoor centre appears to have receded at the expense of the centre in Snowdonia.

May I correct a deliberately misleading statement made by the current administration at County Hall concerning the savings' they have to make. Following my representations at County Hall in the cabinet debate that voted to close Llanrug, I received a letter dated July 20 from Dr George Lord, cabinet leader, where he insists that Children's Services have to make savings of £3m in five years'. This is a statement he makes whenever the matter is debated.

Let us for the time being accept his disputable financial analysis. The obvious thing he deliberately fails to acknowledge is that he insisted that centre leaders draw up neutral budget' business plans (i.e. no subsidy whatsoever) and this they did. Operating these business plans would take no money from Children's Services.

The situation then is that the present administration has voted to sell off Llanrug (pronounced approximately Thlanreeg), the flagship outdoor education centre in Snowdonia, to make entirely spurious savings. They will not even give the centre the opportunity to try to operate on a zero budget, which they have drawn up plans to do.

A small but telling detail here: in all the debates on the matter I have attended at County Hall, cabinet members mispronounce the centre name as LAN-RUG (to rhyme with bug). As well as being somewhat insulting to the staff who work at the centre, it is the clearest indication that they have not visited the centre and know nothing about what goes on there.

So it's not so much just selling off the family silver as selling it blind.

CHARLES EDEN, chair, Worcestershire Outdoor Education Development Association, Rectory Lane, Madresfield.