Earlier this year Local Government Minister John Healey stated that our local councils can now create parish and town councils without seeking approval from the Government.

Hazel Blears, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, has just announced that parish and town councils are to be strengthened under the guise of "parish power".

Parish and town councils are the lowest tier in the hierarchy of local government and historically their charges (or precepts) have accounted for about 1% of our council tax bills.

Recently there has been a significant rise in the percentage of the overall council tax bill attributable to parish and town councils.

In some areas this is now as high as 10% of the total bill. There are even a few parishes and towns where the precept is higher than the district's council tax, a situation which would have been considered impossible a few years ago.

Since 2004 council tax increases have been subject to capping by the Government, although the rapid and uncontrolled increases in parish and town council precepts have been excluded. This anomaly has led to services being offloaded by district councils to parish or town councils without also providing the requisite funding.

The parish or town council can then increase its precept to include the cost of providing the "new" service.

It seems to me the back door has been deliberately left open for this parish power bandwagon. Unless parish and town precepts are subject to capping in the same way as other elements of council tax bills then soon we shall all be reeling from more well above-inflation increases.

And the KO will come if we are landed with the talked-of thousands more councillors, millions of pounds more in allowances and expenses, and the additional burden of their pensions because they can all choose to join the gold-plated, index-linked, taxpayer- funded, final salary local government pension scheme.

Which is worse? To live under Conservatives or die under New Labour?

  • Dave Bonwick, Oakdene Close, Portslade