MADAM, On Thursday evening I attended a consultation meeting at the Larrupez Centre organised by Herefordshire Council, this turned out to be a complete charade at which paid facilitators, led tables full of unwitting participants through an exercise in deception, parading as focus groups discussing priorities for county council service cuts.

The total reason for this meeting and others scheduled throughout the county appears to be a public relations exercise designed to legitimise the forthcoming cuts planned by Herefordshire Council. The Council will be able, as a result of these "consultation" meetings, to claim justification for its choice of cuts, on the statistical results presented from the meetings.

How such meetings can be held in a total vacuum of factual information beggars belief. How can individuals possibly make major decisions on service provision, when they do not have any statistical information regarding the scale of savings required or the cost relating to each service under consideration.

This form of meeting can only lead to the stating of personal bias based often on misinformation and rumour. Please save the rate payers of Herefordshire's money and cancel the remaining farcical meetings.

Our County Councillors are elected to make the often awkward decisions that are required on public services; they should have all the required information in their possession with which to make their deliberations. Please do not attempt to rely on the spurious outcomes from the so called consultation meetings to justify your lack of willingness to make hard decisions.

Patrick Hughes, Wilton