Just read next weeks Cabinet report and it shows that the General reserve – that’s the part of the reserve allocated to nothing specific – is set to rise from £24 million to £27 million by the end of this year. Yes – that’s another £2.7m added to reserves.

I think the council needs to give serious consideration to allocating some of this cash towards infrastructure improvements – roads, pavements, housing, as well as extra cash for engineering and manufacturing apprenticeship schemes – as outlined by the Lib Dem group last year when we said there was enough money to do this – clearly this latest report shows that they could have spent a bit more on these kind of schemes, so come on Labour, get some of this money spent – you can’t complain nationally about money not being spent by the government and then hoard cash at home.

Perhaps they just don’t want to spend any of the reserves until after the general election. Fly on the wall at Labour head office: “Don’t help the economy when Labour aren’t in power nationally it will benefit the coalition.”

A cynical view perhaps, but with reserves increasing again at DCC it is rather odd that they don’t want to do any of the things recommended by Lib Dem , Independent and Tory councillors to boost the local economy. I know many of their own councillors want to see more spent on the things I mention above.