I’M confused.

Nothing unusual about that, you may say but I really am.

Are things getting better or worse? Do we have a bright future to look forward to just over the horizon or do we need to brace ourselves for years and years of economic misery and cutbacks?

I pose this question after reading what, to the untrained eye, appear to be conflicting messages coming from our local and national political leaders.

I was particularly taken by the singularly upbeat announcement last week from Cllr Michael Jones, the leader of Cheshire East Council.

Cllr Jones was speaking after evidence gathered during the suspension of the examination of the Cheshire East Local Plan revealed the borough’s economy is likely to grow much more quickly than previously expected.

Work began on the Cheshire East Local plan back in 2009, just as the country’s economy dropped off the edge of a cliff. But apparently, we are now in a happy place and as a result, Cheshire East Council will now have to draw up plans to accommodate an estimated 31,500 new jobs created by 2030.

This is in comparison to the first version of the plan which guessed the number of jobs in the borough would grow by just 13,900. And this influx of jobs would bring in more people to the borough, and more people need places to live.

This strong jobs growth would create a need for 36,000 new homes by 2030 – 7,000 more than were identified in the submitted version of the Local Plan.

Apparently, the council has already identified the potential locations of 33,000 new homes.

Stand by for howls of protests from villagers complaining the new developments will “change the character of the village/destroy green belt/put a strain on local services”.

According to Cllr Jones: “When we began work on the Local Plan in 2009, we were in the midst of a deep recession.

“In 2012, the sun started shining again and Cheshire East is now in the midst of a jobs boom.

“Because a good proportion of our existing workforce will reach retirement age in the next few years, this means that we need to attract more people into the borough to maintain our strong economy.”

The evidence released by the council will “inform further work on developing a comprehensive plan for the area, and this will be submitted to the planning inspector by the end of July 2015”.

So that’s clear then. It’s boom time and everything in the garden is rosy. More jobs, more people and more money coming into the coffers.

Yes, some areas may have to put up with housing developments they don’t really want – and feel they don’t really need – but that’s the price of progress.

So how does that square with what we are hearing from our lords and masters in Westminster?

I was a keen student of the goings on in the lead up to the general election and I wanted to hear what the main parties had to say about budget cuts during the life of this Parliament.

Sadly, none of them was prepared to give us any details, but the fact remains we all need to brace ourselves for cutbacks which some commentators say will be in the region of £32bn over the next five years.

And that’s while many councils are still trying to come to terms with the budget cuts they’ve had to implement over the past five years. You only have to look around to see the effects of these cuts.

Councils are obliged to provide essential services so the cuts affect those which are considered to be less essential.

For example, a quick search reveals Hale Library – run by Trafford Council – will be sold to a developer, which will have a requirement to provide a library facility within Hale until at least 2017.

Warrington Borough Council has hived off its libraries and leisure centres to a private, not-for-profit company. The much loved Sure Start centres are under threat across the area.

These are the easy targets. The next round of targets won’t be quite so easy to find or easy to swallow.