UNION officials have insisted that major job cuts and privatising services in the technical services department would see services cost more and drop in quality.

Owain Davies, the Ceredigion branch secretary for UNISON, said the scale of job cuts and proposals for privatisation would leave residents seeing poorer services.

He said: “These proposals, if carried through, would see the wholesale privatisation of the refuse, fleet maintenance, parking management and street lighting services.

“In addition to the obvious detrimental impact upon our members who work in those services, these proposals would also, we believe, result in the long-term costs of those services increasing, sharp reductions in service standards and a loss of democratic accountability and control.

“Given the overlap between the refuse service and the winter roads maintenance programme, we are also concerned that these proposals would lead to significant cost increases in that area and potentially jeopardise road safety.

“We believe that public services should remain in public ownership and control and we would ask all residents of Ceredigion who agree with us to contact their councillors directly to ask them to put a stop to these proposals.

“UNISON is also very concerned about the significant job losses which also form part of these proposals.

“Staff and trade unions have had no formal consultation on these proposals up to this point, which is very disappointing.

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