YET again have Wiltshire County Council, Kennet District Council, our town or parish councils and the Wiltshire Police Authority between them contrived to serve the property owners of Wiltshire with council tax increases way above the rate of inflation.

This goes on year after year with the same old platitudes and excuses that local government is underfunded from central government.

On my own band E house (rather laughingly assessed in 1991 as an above-average property) I am now paying almost exactly £1,200 a year in council tax.

In 1994-5 I paid £600. At the ten per cent annual rate at which this tax is now rising in six years from now, in 2008-9 it will be up to £2,126 which is £41 a week. By 2012 it will be up to £3,112, i.e. £60 a week.

Do people realise what is happening? If income tax or VAT were rising at this rate there would be bloody revolution!

Council tax paying property owners are being singled out for persecution in this society. And if you happen this week to be a home-owning lady retiring at 60 with a small private pension which takes you above the threshold for income support, I calculate that well before you make it through to 80 your entire state pension, meagre increases and all, will be swallowed up by council tax.

When is this nonsense to stop? If local councils really haven't got the money coming in to the degree they would all like why can't they cut their cloth accordingly like anyone else?

Why can't council workers, of all grades (with the notable exception of the kerbside rubbish bag collectors who do an outstanding job) get off their backsides a bit more often and produce rather more than they do now by more effective methods on the pay they extract from us, the taxpayers?

Why can't they stop messing with silly little initiatives (like those tarty little welcome signs going up on the outskirts of our villages and futile cycle tracks that peter out anyway) which all cost money and concentrate upon the things that really matter to the population like stopping our roads and pavements from crumbling to pieces, ensuring a disciplined education for our children, and coming down tough on those who are defiling our public places with litter?

Why should the departments for planning and building control or recreation and leisure be paid for out of the public purse when builders and leisure seekers are the direct beneficiaries and could very reasonably be billed for the full costs?

Clearly there are plenty of ways in which local government officials could keep the expense of their activities within the bounds of general inflation yet they choose to act in a totally opposite direction.

Indeed, if they are not always trying to do something new they feel they are failing.

Can they not see the virtue of simply maintaining what they have achieved already and stop thrusting their ever-open throats at us all the time?

BRIAN SAVILLE

Astley Close

Pewsey