I REALISE that spending has to be within budgets but the comments made by Alan Cottam are ridiculous.

I have no idea how old he is but judging from the photo in the paper he is fast approaching retirement.

Many elderly are not as well off as Mr Cottam and can not afford to drive cars or have chauffeur driven cars like some in the council.

For many the trip they take to town or to other towns is the only pleasure they have in the day.

Mr Cottam should try spending his days sitting at home doing nothing with no one to talk to, trying to keep warm because he can not afford to keep the heating on.

As a taxpayer to the council and government I would rather the elderly receive some extra benefits than for someone like Mr Cottam to receive fat salaries, cars, petrol vouchers and huge retirement pensions — he should try living off a state pension.

The council spends money on things like “art work” to display in and on buildings, revamping their offices, taking trips to other countries to see how they do “things” over there, free lunches, biscuits and tea and all the perks for attending meetings, spending money on improving an area only to redo the same a few years later because they did not do a good job in the first place or just because the area is now in an improvement area.

Try reducing the “out of pocket expenses” costs of local councilors employing members of their families to do “jobs”, working very little if at all, spending less or nothing on “art work” a 10-year-old could, do and maybe they”ll be able to divert that into services that people in the real world need.

MR HANIF SULEMAN (via email)