Madam,

By now, most interested people will have seen and considered the contents of the Gwynedd Challenge.

Either online or on paper, it’s an impressive document, where cuts are presented as an opportunity to protect those services we value most. A sum of £5m seems generous and making the numbers fit is quite a satisfying exercise. However, in all such consultations there are traps and pitfalls.

Radical cuts to leisure centres, youth clubs and recycling centres are disguised as graded reductions. Services which are vital to a small number are unlikely to attract wide support. Iconic features which could easily be made to pay their own way may attract disproportionate attention. What has not been addressed is that the complete loss of any one service will have a huge impact on all the others.

For example, the closure of a leisure centre, public toilet or street cleaning service will destroy a town which largely relies on tourism.

The real joker in this game is that we have been given a pre-selected list of possible cuts and the council reserves the right to ignore all that the process may reveal.

Elizabeth Deakin, Tywyn