ANDY Richardson, The Northern Echo’s business editor, implies that paying for car parking at hospitals merely pays for increasing private sector executive pay (Echo, Oct 15).

An odd link to make, rather than to question those that signed up the taxpayer to the wider PFI projects that will take decades to pay off.

Bishop Auckland Hospital, as one example, has a capital value of around £65m but the public pays £300million plus on a PFI deal.

On the exact same theme, Durham County Council asks the public to pay £20 per annum for garden waste to be collected, while also raising council tax, bleating endlessly that Government cuts are to blame and every avenue is being addressed to maintain certain services.

Every avenue that is apart from those services that directly assist the Labour Party and the multi-million pound unions. Three union offices and a union training room at county hall are all rent free.

Durham County Council administers, for free, union subscriptions from council workers to their respective union.

Labour councillors pay around eight per cent of their taxpayer funded allowance direct to the Labour Party – this is money the public pays councillors to carry out their duties being diverted, at source, to the Labour Party, while Durham County Council again administers this, adding a small charge.

In return, unions pay the election expenses of a considerable number of councillors.

To any fair minded person, it has the whiff of total disregard for public money and contempt for the hard-pressed taxpayer.

Jim Tague, Bishop Auckland