Mr Cook (November 19), claims that he fails to see the logic in a quote from me reflecting on the fact it was not logical to assume that councils right across the country were all getting it so wrong when setting the council tax rises above inflation, in recent years.

I was not, as he implies, trying to justify high rises or that just because council A elects for a large increase it's all right for council B to do likewise, quite the opposite.

I was trying to draw attention to the fact that as these similar rises were spread right across most councils in the country, of whatever political persuasion, there had to be a uniformed reason or common cause for it. The Government's steadily reducing share of local government funding while at the same time increasing the financial burden on local authorities, is the root cause.

In 1997 the Government provided approximately 73 per cent of the funding required to run this authority, last year that figure was only 67 per cent. The difference, unless significant savings can be found, has had to be met by the local tax payers.

Quite right that residents across the country are up in arms about these inflation busting rises and the current Conservative administration in Swindon is working very hard to try and keep this year's council tax rise down

(Coun) Ian Dobie

Deputy Leader of Swindon Council