The local elections will soon be here again. Hopefully an election that shall breathe a lot of new life into the council.

An election in which councillors start making improvements which everyone can see.

When I say seeing improvements I mean where you can see your hard earned wages is going on council taxes.

OK, council taxes always go up but usually the services get much worse.

The roads, for example. OK in certain places are excellent but in others are terrible.

When I say terrible I mean roads that have holes more than a few inches deep.

If rates are going up by 10 per cent and more then surely we need to see improvements.

I am really sick and tired of councillors always blaming the Government for cutting their grants all of the time.

What makes it worse is that most councillors blame the Government (despite what Government is in power) because it is a well-rehearsed excuse.

There are no excuses for dangerous pavements and holes in roads, especially with modern day monitoring equipment.

There is no excuse for why the pavements and roads are not physically inspected on foot any more.

If rates are increasingly going to rise by more than the rate of inflation then the public demands seeing the improvements first hand. They have a right for improvements and a right to see them being improved.

You cannot keep taking without giving something back.

You cannot keep putting things up for the sake of putting things up. The rates increases this year are a disgrace.

They are not justified and probably mostly will be wasted. The role of the councillor is changing. For better or worse shall be debatable. Nevertheless the role is changing and change it must if we are going to ensure more balance all round.

We need to stop the bickering, personal arguments and old scores to deliver the services that shall eventually benefit us all.

Once you get the correct balance of services your grants should be more manageable and perhaps you can then argue with Government that some of that grant could be redirected into an area which does need a cash injection to get it up to a level to be more manageable.

I do not believe that council tax should increase by more than the rate of inflation each year and I do not believe grants should be cut or stopped if councillors are proved to be operating well in the local area and are indicating better where the problem areas are.

The question is are they? Or is it a deeper problem going back decades?

Are there areas of mistrust that people in the future will be suffering from because of people's egos?

ANDREW HUNGERFORD,

Rambler Close,

Trowbridge.