Cuts to community assets take grim toll | Letters

Ten years ago I studied for a masters in peace and development in Leeds. I used to rejoice as I walked through the municipal gardens near my home as we learned about the need for "capacity building" in the developing world. How grateful I was for all the local municipal provision that we lived with here: the parks, halls, toilets, youth centres, libraries.

With central-government austerity policies (Cuts at catastrophic level, says Birmingham council chief, 13 December), they are now all vanishing, or hard-pressed local volunteers are struggling to deal with community-asset transfer, taking over the running and the management of such amenities, if they are not sold off to unaccountable private companies.