I STRONGLY suggest Coun Steve Galloway and North Yorkshire Chief Constable, Della Cannings, get their heads together and try and formulate some new excuses for the 2005 tax year, because their present ones are wearing thin.

I don't care whether or not York has one of the lowest council tax bills in the country and I don't care that the council allegedly saved £2.36 million this year.

How much was wasted on council junkets and "fact-finding missions"? Above all, I'm sick of the council treating the council tax payer as a seemingly bottomless pit of money who can shoulder year-on-year rises way above the inflation rate and with little or nothing in return.

City councillors should remember their job is to serve the interests of the residents of this city, not the tourists and certainly not themselves.

Given that they appear to be selectively deaf and blind to the "voice of the people", is it any wonder that people are turning to direct action to make themselves heard?

Dr Simon Ward,

Barons Crescent,

Copmanthorpe, York.

...WHEN the Liberal Democrats took power in York we were asked where we would make cuts in council services.

My suggestion is that City of York Council should introduce a compulsory contribution of ten per cent of the salary of all officials paid above £30,000 a year should the rate of council tax rise exceed that of inflation.

Should the tax rise reach twice inflation then an additional ten per cent making a 20 per cent loss of salary.

Dare we go to 30 per cent?

We would never need to!

Faced with such financial penalties, we would see proper budget control and spending directed where essential, rather than to those desired by a minority interest.

Michael Brooks,

Slessor Road,

Acomb, York.

...IT is a pity that Labour councillors Dave Evans and Sandy Fraser have such a short memory on the subject of council tax (Letters, March 10).

A year ago, when their own party proposed a significantly bigger tax hike of 5.97 per cent (more than 13 per cent with the police precept included), they do not appear to have been so concerned about the burden that scale of increase would impose on York residents.

Yet now, with the Labour Government continuing to impose new, and unfunded, costs on local authorities they protest that any means of meeting the shortfall is "unnecessary". At least the Liberal Democrats are campaigning to replace council tax with one based on the ability to pay, and have done what they can in York to raise funds progressively while offering concessions to pensioners.

When will Labour stop penalising society's most vulnerable by shunning the most progressive and the most transparent means of taxation?

Gavin Steel,

Eden's Court,

Heslington,

York.

Updated: 10:11 Monday, March 15, 2004