WHAT are we to make of the proposals to increase the police element of the council tax by at best 34.5 per cent, or at worst 74 per cent (December 11)?

Many of your readers must live in rural areas where the sight of a policeman is something of a rarity.

Are we expected to be so gullible as to accept yet another hike in taxes on the premise that things will improve?

Year after year we hear of the need to increase funding, and every year we are presented with re-organisations which, in all honesty, reduce the service overall.

We now have market towns with part-time police stations. We have central call telephone answering services where answer times are protracted and the operators are totally unfamiliar with rural areas.

Recently the Police Authority spoke out against traffic calming measures on the A63, saying they are unable to police a lower speed limit. That surely must rank as countenancing law breakers.

What is the answer? A return to local policing and a prolonged period of stability. This will not come about until such time as there are more local people directly involved in overseeing the work of the North Yorkshire Police Authority. But come it must.

David Rhodes,

The Shrubberies,

Cliffe, Selby.

...SO North Yorkshire Police have only received a three per cent increase in their grants from central Government, and they are likely to want our council tax to rise to help them out.

Last year North Yorkshire Police asked for, and got, a 44.54 per cent increase in their council tax take. This, they said, was to take account of the new initiatives put forward by Government, wages, pensions and the Great Heck disaster (which the Government said they would pay for the day after the 44.54 per cent increase was announced).

Tax-payers cannot afford to keep topping up the police force and the local councils for ever. We need our hard-earned money to pay all the rest of our bills. Hands off our money!

Jeremy Banyard,

Bramham Grove,

Acomb,

York.

Updated: 11:42 Friday, December 13, 2002