AND so the axe is poised to come crashing down on local public services as Worcestershire plays its part in the Government’s debt-reduction programme – better known as The Cuts.

The county council has unveiled the latest part of its plan to cut its spending by £70 million a year by 2015.

There weren’t any great surprises, we’d known about most of the ideas for a while as the council consulted interested bodies.

The four areas where cost-cutting plans were firmed up yesterday were libraries, buses, youth services and arts and music.

Despite talk of efficiencies and back-room savings, it is clear that frontline services will be hit.

In all likelihood there will be fewer library buildings, fewer buses – especially in rural areas – fewer places housing activity for youngsters, fewer arts and music events.

And any effort to try to keep any of these threatened services going will now fall on local community groups and volunteers.

We applaud the council for their efforts to try to concentrate on saving money by honing in on the costs of buildings and equipment, rather than the services themselves.

And we applaud them for trying to switch some money back to help new services spring up – especially the aid to community groups who may be able to fill some of the gap left in the provision of rural public transport.

Which puts the emphasis on us. These cuts will provide us with a smaller (and therefore, less costly) State.

But it seems that if we want the services that the smaller State does not provide, we have to find a way of providing them for ourselves.