I TRIED to get the names of the new Wycombe district council cabinet. At first they tried to fob me off saying "the man with that information is on holiday until the middle of next week"!

Anyway, I found that both the leader of the cabinet and his deputy are from Green Hill and Totteridge! It is therefore germane to ask what difference will emerge from such a "cabinet.."

More democracy? More autocracy or just more oligarchy? I have already placed my bets!

Marlow, which is the largest constituent town in the district after High Wycombe doesn't get a single cabinet post even though it has two seasoned, well qualified, experienced, staunch, long-service party men and this suggests they are just not "crony" enough!"

Perhaps the district council leader like a good chairman/manager would explain to us financial contributors the criteria on which he appointed his cabinet so we can judge his, and his team's, capabilities by their performance and whether their "resolutions" are ever transmogrified into "deliveries"!

Excluding Marlow is not really surprising and the location of the "appointees" indicates clearly the district council's priorities and primary areas of concern for social regeneration and demonstrably Marlow just isn't included!

How can they know what Marlow people feel?

Maybe they should have included a place for property developers and restaurateurs since current evidence suggests that they decide on all planning and developments for Marlow!

Or perhaps the cabinet could explain why Marlow now has 15 restaurants! The townsfolk don't need that many eating places - and the profits are not ploughed back into amenities for the town - so what is the objective of this epidemic of conversions?

Will the cabinet do anything about the increase of traffic or the denial of grammar school places for Marlow kids in favour of kids from surrounding counties.

Or the non-provision of a pedestrian crossing over the A4155 at Borlase School? Or take the initiative in investigating sound-reducing road surfacing for Marlow by-pass?

Experience suggests that they will merely find excuses that such problems "are the responsibility of some other council!" and the district council is too polite, too constrained, too lethargic, or just too damned lazy, to raise a rumpus and get those "other authorities" to do something!

It is going to be a very costly exercise for us taxpayers and we shall, justifiably, be looking for "value for money" - and the new cabinet might bear in mind that more people voted against their Conservative parliamentary candidate in the General Election than voted for him!

Bill Purdie

West Street

Marlow