COUNCIL TAX: DURHAM City Council's ruling LibDems have announced plans for a 2.75 per cent increase in their council tax (Echo, Feb 3) which they say is all due to "good management and careful financial control".

Not good or careful enough, it would appear on closer inspection.

Because the city's council taxpayers should have had an even better deal if the council had met Government expectations.

In deciding how to share out grants to cushion the burden on council taxpayers in 2005-06, the Government directed funding away from county councils to other classes of authority - including district councils like Durham City.

As a result, the Government assumed that district councils could raise 0.3 per cent less from the council tax in 2005-06 than they did in the current year - so Durham City's proposed 2.75 per cent increase is not such a good deal after all!

The county council is confident it can keep its council tax demand to below the 4.9 per cent increase expected of it by the Government, as residents will discover next week. - Don Ross, Deputy Leader, Durham County Council.

IN 2004, LibDems in Durham City promised to listen to local people, to clamp down on waste and give every taxpayer a £100 rebate.

However, in just over a year LibDem reality has seen views on tax ignored, £753,000 wasted on the Gala Theatre and a council tax rise.

The LibDem solution after a year of tax and waste is to do it all over again in 2005.

More tax, more waste, more arrogance - Lib Dem promises should come with a warning: voting for this party can seriously damage your wealth! - Michael Fishwick, City of Durham Conservatives.

THE poor council taxpayers on Teesside are being softened up for the annual council tax hike in May.

North Yorkshire council has already announced a 4.9 per cent increase for 2005-6 and Cleveland Fire Service will also ask for an increase of around five per cent, as will Cleveland Police Authority, on council tax bills.

All four Teesside councils have recently received more than 6.5 per cent increases in their annual budgets - an increase way above current inflation and acknowledged in local government circles as one of the most generous settlements for many years.

Yet it looks almost certain we will still have to fork out an additional five per cent through further increases in our council tax.

Many of us will be watching carefully and indeed expecting our four local MPs (all Labour) to use their persuasive powers, ensuring that our council tax on Teesside remains unchanged or reduced. - Pat Walker, Acklam, Middlesbrough.

EDUCATION

DURHAM Johnston School is one of the top performing schools in the county. However, its buildings are falling down. The county council has agreed in principle to build a new school, but no funds have been allocated and as yet, and it has no idea where the money will come from.

Funds from the Government's Building Schools for the Future initiative are allocated by the county council, but it is prioritising schools in areas of social deprivation and with poor exam results, and schools like Durham Johnston lose out. The programme takes no account of the state of repair of the school buildings - Durham Johnston is last on the list but in desperate need of investment.

The LibDems are leading the campaign for a new school. - Carol Woods, LibDem Prospective Candidate, Durham City.

RUBBISH

CONSERVATIVES have recently opposed important measures to help councils to protect the local environment.

The Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Bill will give new powers to tackle litter bugs, fly tipping, fly posting, abandoned cars and other kinds of anti-social and criminal behaviour that threaten the environment.

William Hague, the MP for Richmond, has joined Conservative colleagues in voting against the bill. The Conservatives have suggested that they doubt the measures are needed in rural areas - that they are more appropriate for urban areas. However, many farmers suffer from fly tipping and other rubbish. Liberal Democrats believe that the problems are faced in both urban and rural areas and that although the Bill is imperfect it is better to amend rather than reject it altogether in order to make environmental improvements. - Jacqueline Bell, LibDem Prospective Candidate for Richmond.

NORTH EAST ASSEMBLY

WHEN the people of the North-East voted No to an elected regional assembly, they were telling politicians and Government that they are there to serve the people.

Do you recall being asked to approve the unelected North East Assembly, its organisation, its staff, its costs and its agenda?

John Prescott, Deputy Prime Minister, said we would be losing our chance for several years if we voted No. Don't believe it - we will be offered opportunities until we say Yes. Regional assemblies are part of the EU's plans for all of Europe.

The North-East battle may have been won. However, the fight continues. Councillors and MPs are here to represent you and not to support the Government. I invite you to continue to say No to the North-East regional assembly. - John H Waiting, Guisborough.

TORY Jim Tague again prefers personal attacks (HAS, Jan 28) to serious argument. His snide remark about my supposed "canny little number" representing Wear Valley on the North East Assembly is wide of the mark. This is a voluntary work for which I receive no additional payment - I would be better off if I didn't go.

He is also wrong to say that the assembly receives £860,000 council taxpayers' money. It does not. This money helps pay the staff of both the assembly and the Association of North-East Councils, which at present are run jointly. The two organisations are soon to separate, and most, if not all, the council money will in future go to ANEC with the assembly receiving little or nothing of this funding.

I have always been in favour of "local decisions." Both in the Banham review in the 1990s and leading up to the recent referendum, I supported the continuation of our present local district councils as unitary authorities.

The North-East is run by over 100 Government-appointed quangos with highly paid boards who spend tens of millions of our money without any form of local accountability. Why Mr Tague and others ignore them and pick on the assembly, which is not a quango and whose members are all volunteers, is beyond me. - Coun Chris Foote-Wood, Bishop Auckland Liberal Democrats.