I NOTE that our illustrious MP, in his weekly column, has joined in the deception regarding the freezing of council tax.?Council tax has been frozen in name only. Car parking and garden waste collection are services previously provided by the district council and financed by the council tax receipts in the same way that refuse collection, newspaper and tin recycling and any other services provided by the council are financed. To claim otherwise is a lie! But the cash cows are now in place for yet further annual increases. Perhaps next year will see the introduction of a separate charge for general waste collection!

I reside in Yorkley and from July if I choose to park in Lydney for two hours a week and have a garden waste bin to be collected fortnightly the charges for these represent an increase in my payments to the council, ie council tax, of 3.6 per cent.

If however I also work in the town and, in view of the pathetic public transport system, I drive to work and park at, say £2 a day, this now represents an increase of 31 per cent in my council tax.

So please Mark Harper and Forest of Dean District Council, call a halt to this massive deception and give some consideration to your electorate in these difficult financial conditions when wages are being frozen or cut, fuel prices are escalating to unprecedented levels and rural folk are being hit from almost every conceivable direction.

Surely it is not a far better policy to increase council tax by, say, 3 per cent and receive a guaranteed income than to instigate a policy involving consideration additional expenditure in the form of staffing, administration and equipment, but without a guaranteed return on the expenditure?

But this would destroy the Tory political ideology that Tory councils are the only councils to freeze council tax!

Should we not also consider the vast number of new homes being built in the Dean and the additional council tax revenue resulting from these properties? I believe that some 600 houses are planned for Lydney alone and an average council tax of £1,000 nets an extra £600,000. This really does put the one off £118,000 bribe from the ConDem coalition, for council tax freezing, into context.

It would be interesting if Mark Harper could just for once in his weekly column actually clarify what, if anything, he has done to improve the lives and prosperity of his constituents.

What, for instance, has Mark Harper done to encourage the scrapping of Severn bridge tolls? What has he done to persuade the Government to introduce the Fuel Duty Equaliser for the Forest of Dean? What has he done to encourage investment and jobs in the area? What has he done towards alleviation of the sheep nuisance in the villages?

His silence regarding the car parking charges has been almost deafening. I would suggest that Mark Harper's only claim to fame has been his incredible failure to persuade folk that selling off the Forest of Dean would be a fantastic idea!

Isn't it time that Mark Harper started actually representing the needs and desires of his constituents instead of pandering to his Westminster payments?

– Forest Will, Yorkley.