SO local shopkeepers are encouraging people to stop paying business rates by direct debit (Parking protest to get 'awkward' (June 25).

I am sure this will have an enormous impact on the council, especially seeing as business rates are paid to central government and not to local councils.

It is this unfortunate level of ignorance around the way local government is funded that leads to local councils bearing the brunt of residents' anger, when blame should be directed elsewhere.

If local councils were able to collect their own business rates, and in fact raise all their income locally, then, yes, they should be held to account for their actions.

While we are stuck in a situation where central government holds the purse strings and local councils are forced to go cap in hand, the public's anger will continue to get directed at the wrong people.

Parking charges themselves are just another example of Gordon Brown's policy of stealth taxation, preventing councils from raising necessary revenue through council tax by threatening capping, and asking them to gain it surreptitiously through other avenues.

Nigel Ayre,

Galtres Road,

Heworth, York.

...WE read how so many people on our estates pay for a permit and have nowhere to park.

Would it be any worse if areas just got rid of their parking schemes altogether? Could the situation be better for all of us? Shops, churches, meeting rooms and so forth.

Could the answer be in our hands, I wonder? Get rid of parking schemes and let's look to a better future.

Keith Chapman,

Custance Walk,

Nunnery Lane,

York.

Updated: 10:57 Monday, June 28, 2004