I NOTE that council tax is to rise by 6.5 per cent. This happens with monotonous regularity each year and the figure is always above inflation.

I may be getting on in years, but if I see salaries kept mainly in line with inflation and services not improving, then I find it reasonable to assume that council tax should stay the same, or rise only by the level of inflation.

What I see are roads getting more and more pot-holed; street lights waiting weeks to be repaired; an over-stretched police force that can not give us the protection we need; mutterings about education; and a local health service which still cannot cope. And still the council tax rises above inflation!

The problem is that it is too easy for our councillors to take the soft option of raising council tax. We have to pay it by law so we have little say in the increase. If we had competition, then I am sure that the council would soon find ways of increasing efficiency and dramatically reducing costs.

To some extent we, the electorate, have ourselves to blame by not turning out for the local elections. Average turn-out is of the order of 27 per cent.

I now intend writing to every councillor, all 48 of them, to ask them to get this iniquitous increase reduced. We elected them to manage our affairs for our benefit and there is little evidence of this.

Let's hear no more of national government failing to give the necessary funds. The council is supposed to be professional. It must prove it and operate within an achievable budget at a sensible cost.

IAN WATTS,

Kingsbridge Avenue,

Ainsworth.