THE first meeting in South Bucks on council spending cuts was labelled a “nonsense” after a “ludicrous turnout” of just 22 people.

The ‘Bucks Debates’ came to Marlow on Friday night - with the aim of engaging taxpayers in a discussion on where the axe should fall.

Buckinghamshire County Council faces around a 25 per cent reduction in its funding.

But only about a handful of residents turned up for the ‘interactive’ meeting at Great Marlow School in Bobmore Lane, Marlow.

The majority who attended were councillors serving at either parish, town, district or county level or council staff.

BCC Deputy Leader Bill Chapple insisted the discussion had still been ‘meaningful’.

He said he was determined to give residents their say and defended the idea, saying it was up to residents who had “at least had the chance” to come.

Officials from neighbouring counties who were interested in the idea of the debates, had talked to him about running similar events, he said.

But Barbara Wallis, a Little Marlow Parish Councillor, said: “The few people here just makes a nonsense of it.

"It’s meant to be one of the Wycombe District consultations but it’s completely failed - just count the numbers.

“It’s just ridiculous, the turnout is ludicrous.”

John Evans, retired, of Spinfield Park, Marlow, backed Cllr Wallis, saying: “It’s living up to expectations, it’s just ticking boxes.

"Can we honestly go away and say we have had a consultation?”

It was not a conventional public meeting, with those who came being split into groups and asked to carry out an exercise.

They were given cards with categories such as ‘planning and environment’ briefly summarising what the department does and how much it costs.

They were asked to look at which services they would scrap and which could be funded differently.

Marlow resident John Barlow said the debate should focus on scrapping the two-tier council system and creating one single authority.

“We have got an organisation that does 80 per cent of it, why can’t that organisation do 100 per cent of it? Why can’t BCC just do everything?” he asked.

He said it would remove “an enormous layer of bureaucracy”.

Bcc Chief Executive Chris Williams told him the idea had been examined before and it had been estimated savings of more than £20 million would have been made.

But district council bosses were against it.

Cllr Chapple was not dispirited by the turnout. He said: “The people who were here worked diligently at the exercises. They did it in a meaningful way.

“You tell me what a good number is.

"300 would have been nice but we are competing with a Friday night when people go away, football is on television.

"It’s their free time and I know that as a family man.”

“I don’t think we did it wrong. I think you have got to realise we have to cover the whole county in a fairly quick time.

"There’s nothing worse than something dragging on for weeks and weeks.”

Fridays could not be discounted, he said.

Further meetings will take place over the next fortnight (see link below) including High Wycombe on September 13.

Cllr Chapple said the meetings were only one way to join the debate.

He strongly encouraged residents to hold their own debates at home, aided by ‘toolkits’ from its website or commenting on the blog.

Visit the link below to find out more.