SEDGEFIELD will be better off under the Liberal Democrats' new tax plans, the party leader said yesterday on a visit to the constituency.

Menzies Campbell dropped in on Hurworth School, in a village where the Lib Dems have just gained a councillor at the Conservatives' expense, on the day that he unveiled plans to cut income tax from 20p to 16p.

"We want to move taxation from earnings and income onto pollution and wealth," he said. "We would abolish council tax, which is grossly unfair and regressive and damages most those who, like pensioners, are on fixed incomes."

Council tax would be replaced by a local income tax.

"The overall tax take will be the same, but it will be taken on the basis of ability to pay," he said. "There are 23 million households in the UK, and ten per cent of them will pay more and the remainder would be better off. Any household earning £70,000 a year or less will be better off."

Candidate Greg Stone said: "Gordon Brown scrapping the 10p rate of income tax means anyone earning less than £18,000 will be worse off - and the average income in Sedgefield is £17,500. Mr Brown's policies are not helping this constituency.

"In terms of redistribution of wealth, this is far more convincing than what New Labour is offering."

Mr Campbell said: "Taxation will be switched onto pollution because we have an enormously important objective of tackling climate change. Under Mr Brown, the percentage of environmental taxes has actually fallen rather than keep pace with inflation."

Mr Campbell was shown around the school and met parents from the campaign group that fought Darlington council's plans to merge Hurworth with another secondary school.

"This school was saved by the enormously successful campaign run by local people and assisted by Lib Dem councillors," he said. "People whose lives are directly affected by such decisions must have the opportunity to influence them - and that includes the school's plans for the future."

Mr Campbell met Hurworth's two Lib Dem councillors, Martin Swainston and Malcolm Dunstone, and said: "The Conservatives have given up the ghost north of Birmingham, and we are now the opposition in the North-East, as we are in the House of Commons. Conservatives and Labour are so close on a raft of issues - Iraq, tuition fees, Trident, nuclear power - it is extraordinary."

Mr Campbell, a former Olympic sprinter, also reminisced that it was at Billingham where, in 1963, he made his debut for Great Britain in a meeting against the Benelux countries. "I came second in the 400 metres sprint," he recalled.