LIB Dem leader Coun Steve Galloway is making increasingly wild claims about the city council's budget.

In his desperate attempt to dodge responsibility for the parking charges and council tax hikes he is blaming anyone but himself.

In ducking his responsibility for these decisions his behaviour is shameful.

Last year Labour set a sensible balanced budget. The council's finance expert said in a public statement our budget was "constructed on the basis of matching ongoing expenditure and income with ongoing resources, leaving no built-in underlying problems for future years".

Labour left the council in good financial shape and Coun Galloway's claims he inherited a financial black hole are a complete distortion of the truth. The Lib Dems chose to include the highly controversial parking charges in their budget. They also chose to increase the council tax well above inflation.

Labour proposed amendments to scrap the parking charges and to lower the council tax; the Lib Dems voted against them. The truth is that Lib Dems cost more, and they must take responsibility for this.

Coun Dave Evans,

Labour spokesperson for resources,

Gray Street, York.

...IN what is no doubt an inadvertent oversight, Coun D'Argorne's listing of his voting record at the last City of York Council meeting (March 5) is incomplete. For those Fishergate residents who live within residents' parking zones, allow me to correct the omission.

Coun D'Argorne continued the support of the Green Party councillors for the Lib Dems' doubling of the charges for ResPark permits, and trebling the cost of visitors permits, by voting with the ruling group and against Labour's amendment to the council's budget, which would have made the massive hike in these charges unnecessary.

Coun Sandy Fraser,

Micklegate ward councillor,

Millfield Road, York.

Updated: 11:15 Wednesday, March 10, 2004