WHEN, if ever, will the profligate Stockton Borough Council cease its spendthrift policies of committing immense sums of money, all borrowed, and all to be repaid with interest by ratepayers for unworthy projects?

It has borrowed £17m to build a hotel for a wealthy international conglomerate, £7m to buy a not wholly successful shopping centre, and untold millions with feasibly more to come to rebuild the derelict Globe Theatre.

Council comments justify its actions, but how valid can such utterances for there is no way the council will criticise its own policies, or be less than unrealistically optimistic about how wonderfully successful everything is and will continue to be.

A friend receives the full Old Age Pension, and of that money 25 per cent is paid in Council Tax, but unfortunately she will not be alone in that worry. Perhaps councillors could consider that gross financial fact when the next expensive grandiose scheme is presented to them?

Labour for the Working Class? Hardly. With these extravagances, it appears that the council assumes all ratepayers are in the highest tax bracket.

Bobby Meynell, Stockton