Councillor Mary Mears claims she is “blazing a trail” with a range of “recession relief initiatives” (Letters, November 20). I hope she doesn’t get her fingers burnt.

She says the Greens don’t even have a plan. Well, I’ve got news for her – even the Government’s plan to overcome the economic crisis isn’t working. She seems to have forgotten that a credit crunch means that people don’t have money to spend.

Surveys of business leaders show they favour a reduction in direct tax and/or VAT. Local councils could help by reducing council taxes. The other main issue is that banks have to start lending again but since they have been told by the Government to be prudent and not make irresponsible loans – a cause of the economic crisis – they appear to be reluctant to do this.

Is Coun Mears thinking of reducing council taxes to give us more money to spend? Perhaps she could use the money that the council didn’t invest in the collapsed Iceland banks to give us a payment holiday?

Coun Mears announced at the cabinet meeting on November 20 that her great trail-blazing idea is for the council to pay its bills within ten days of receipt.

I wonder how long it normally takes? This illustrates the inefficiency of the council. When it comes to residents paying council tax, they want us to use direct debit – no payment delays for us.

The idea that businesses will beat the credit crunch by the earlier payment of bills that should be paid promptly anyway is laughable.

The council website reads: “From now on and for the foreseeable future everything we do will be done with the economy in mind.” What has it been doing before? It should keep Brighton and Hove residents in mind as well. No wonder our council taxes are high.

The best news of all is that Coun Mears has found a way of creating local jobs through an “employment partnership”. I’m not sure what this means and recently Coun Mears promised that she would use plain English, but we can forgive her breaking this promise if she delivers jobs. The real icing on the cake is that this plan will “end generations of unemployment”.

Does she mean that families where several generations are on benefits will now have jobs? Or, does she mean she has found a long-term answer to unemployment?

Obviously it is better not to be clear about what she means because if it doesn’t work out she can claim she intended to mean something entirely different.

Alan Thorpe, Rosebery Avenue, Brighton