So here it is! My council tax bill is on the mat, nearly £2,000 per annum for a fairly ordinary four bed detached house. Facilities are reducing but charges rise. Where is all the money going? Few police, no fire station, roads rarely swept, verges rarely

So here it is! My council tax bill is on the mat, nearly £2,000 per annum for a fairly ordinary four bed detached house.

Facilities are reducing but charges rise. Where is all the money going? Few police, no fire station, roads rarely swept, verges rarely cut, education failings, waste collections reducing, roads full of holes, insecurity at night, libraries under fire, evening classes for adults lost, one could go on.

No doubt other readers can add many more. Of course much blame is to be attached to Gordon Brown's reduced subsidies, but that does not explain to me how it is that services we used to have years ago have now diminished or gone and yet we pay more and more and more. All for what? The only extra I can identify is an ineffective, toothless and unnecessary town council exemplified by the anodyne, defensive and trivial letters in The Comet.

Council tax over the past few years has been way ahead of inflation, or at least the manipulated index figures put out by this government. My income has not matched these price increases, (I wish), and how about those who rely heavily on the minimal state pension? Benefits can compensate but are complicated and anyway are a subsidy paid for by those lucky enough to be sufficiently well off to be taxed.

Incidentally, what is to be made of the need to use six foreign languages other than English on the accompanying leaflets? The implications are worrying. I am also offered £50 saving if I insulate my property through British Gas. Well, my property was insulated some 20 years ago, so can I have a reduction please?

R THOROGOOD, Newlands, Letchworth GC

* We have recently received our council tax demand. On the back of the council tax information leaflet are no fewer than six language translations. Could I ask at what cost?

If people come to stay in this country they should learn to speak our language and if they cannot, then they should get another member of their family or a friend who speaks English to translate and not expect the cost to be met by the taxpaying public. Why stop at six. There are many more languages in this world.

The next thing will be a person who has settled in this country and whose language has not been translated will seek compensation from the council because their human rights have been abused!!!

R WARD, Stevenage