Metro mayors sound great. But they can’t save local parks and pools | Peter Hetherington

New mayors will be elected on 4 May in England. But what good are they in the face of chronic local government cuts?

City parks lie overgrown and abandoned; swimming pools and leisure centres shuttered; libraries locked up; local bus services axed; youth services scrapped; roads so badly potholed that hundreds of miles face closure. If the list of cutbacks is endless across the country, you can be sure of one thing. There's worse to come.

Related: England's new metro mayors will have influential role in NHS | Richard Vize