THE closure of the housing and benefits office in Great Harwood and those in Hyndburn's other outer towns (LET, February 19) is going to cost me and others who pay their council tax monthly at least an extra £20 on top of the official rise, or we will have to pay by direct debit, which I don't want to do.

I haven't a car, so with travel to Accrington costing roughly £1 each way on the bus, over the 10 months in which you can pay your council tax, another £20 will be added to my bill and that of anyone else in the same position.

Another point is, if I do have to do this, I'm not going to spend so much of my time going to Accrington just for that, so I might as well do some shopping while I'm there, taking more trade out of our small towns and taking another step down that road to ghost towns.

Even those with cars (more traffic on the roads) will also shop while out.

It's about time services and shops were brought back to the small town.

D WESTWELL, Moss Street, Great Harwood.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.