YOUR correspondent Mr Park (Letters April 22) is right to say that recent increases in council tax are largely to be blamed on central Government.

Areas like ours are subject to a double-whammy. Convinced that it knows better than local people how we should spend our own money, Whitehall imposes more and more targets and duties on local councils. Simultaneously, it cuts its grants.

There is, however, one inaccuracy in Mr Park?s letter. Contrary to his assumption, our elected representatives have no power to influence the police precept element of the council tax, which it is the borough?s unfortunate task to collect.

There is a glaring omission in the letter as well. The problem with council tax is not just the overall amount that local people have to pay, but the unfair way in which so much of the burden falls on those with modest incomes. Council tax was an invention of a Conservative Government, which the Labour Government has done nothing to change.

Recently the Liberal Democrat Group on West Devon Council proposed a motion calling for council tax to be scrapped and replaced with a ?fairer tax based on the ability to pay?. Councillor Eberlie and his ?Condependent? friends voted through an amendment to delete these words. They presumably therefore favour retaining an unfair tax, regardless of ability to pay.

I find that people all over West Devon are overwhelmingly in favour of the Liberal Democrat plan to scrap the council tax.

David Walter

Prospective Liberal Democrat Parliamentary candidate for West Devon and Torridge

Forge Cottage, Sampford Courtenay