I UNDERSTAND that at present our council tax is the lowest in Wales. I understand that in these times where the government has cut back on allocations of money to councils in Wales in general and funds are hard pressed for the allocation of services.

Nevertheless money is wasted.

What I cannot understand, is that I live on a retirement park where a lot of the residents are over 70 years old. We have to take our bin bags physically to the entrance of our park – on foot – it is private and therefore the rubbish lorry cannot enter our park. There are no other arrangements within the park itself.

Some of us are disabled, myself included. We are all generally slower than most and all we really pay for is the privilege of having our rubbish collected from outside our park – we do the donkey work or a more able neighbour does it for us.

The road is private; the street lighting is private, there are no arrangements for us “older” people for collection of refuse within our park or anything else. We pay ground rent to the owner of the land where we have sited our homes and all we pay for is just that and also for an “empty when it’s full” aspect of the sewerage plant which again is privately owned and “managed”.

The only service that we receive from the council is collection of our refuse, yet we will be included in this proposed hike in charges. I ask: Is this fair? No it is not.

A few years ago we went to a tribunal to dispute an increase in our banding for council tax. We lost, as all the HMRC representative could muster was a few words regarding the law and also said that we were paying for the view!

Our council charge was raised from Band A to Band C. In England all homes like ours are rated as A. This, unfortunately, in the eyes of the law is not discriminatory! What happened to us all being part of Great Britain?

I would be curious to know about the justification of the expense of the cycle path that is being extended along the St David’s road from just after the Rising Sun Inn to connect it with the path running just past the Murco garage. This is being undertaken by private contractors and has involved tree surveyors and it also includes an extremely dangerous drop on a very nasty bend just after the Rising Sun Inn.

How much has the council paid out for this work being undertaken and not yet finished? The cyclists still will not use this pathway and will continue to ride two abreast on the road. Only part of the pathway will be used by pedestrians – so why have the council who are hard pressed for money done this?

In our cases, the 12 – and let’s not forget the half per cent – is completely unjustified.

DEBORAH WILLIAMS

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