In those blissful days, sadly long gone, when Redditch was governed by the non-elected Development Corporation, one of its chairmen said he believed: "Redditch will soon be the finest place in England to live, work and play."

We are now some 20 years on from that forecast and it may be the time to pass judgement.

Since then, we have lost our cinema and there seems little likelihood of a replacement.

The swimming pool remains a Victorian bath with a roof over it. It does not measure up to those at Bromsgrove or Kidderminster.

We are at considerable risk of our hospital being downgraded. The threatened departments look likely to go to Worcester, which regularly cannot cope and uses the facilities of the Alex in emergency. It has done so already this year.

So on Saturday, January 10, a protest march about the threat to the Alex was organised. I went - and so did 229 other people.

I think that is 0.28 per cent of the population of the town. I think that means that one in every 350 of those affected marched.

Worceshershire Acute Hospitals Trust must have been terrified by this weight of public opinion.

The organisers said they were pleased with the turnout. I should think the trust was even more pleased.

On that same Saturday, there were several other marches about hospital closures and reduced services. At Whitchurch, Shropshire, 2,000 marched out of a population of 10,000.

At Ludlow, there were 3,000 from a similar population. At Bridgnorth, a population of 20,000 produced 6,000 protesters. Redditch had 230. Our population is 80,000.

One would like to report the march had the overwhelming support of borough councillors. I did spot two out of 29 and was reliably informed there were some more somewhere.

We also have eight county councillors representing the borough. I was reliably informed that one was there.

Of course, we now know what are the priorities of our councillors. They have successfully got themselves into a financial mess.

Having organised a disastrous pop concerts in 2005 at a cost to all of us of £650,000, we were told this year's AIR Festival would cost a mere £100,000.

But that was before another change of mind. There will be no festival in 2006.

And where were all the other councillors who were not on the march? They were busy considering closing the National Needle Museum and the Bordesley Abbey Visitor Centre - opened by the Queen at the instigation of the Development Corporation as part of their plan to make Redditch a fine place to live, work and play.

So in 2006 we can look forward to reduced services at our hospital, to a seriously threatened A&E department, possibly long drives to Worcester and no parking space when we get there, no arts festival, no financial support for arts groups, no museum and no cinema.

And hands up anyone who still believes that astonishing sports complex at Bordesley will ever be built.

I sometimes wonder what we have a council in Redditch for. It does after all collect a larger council tax from us than anywhere else in Worcestershire. It will be seeking our votes again in May.

I will be accused of writing a wholly negative letter so I will conclude by congratulating Redditch Council's rubbish collection service. It is excellent.

RH RICHARDSON

Headless Cross