I, like many other freeholders, now believe that the Forest of Dean District Council is equally, if not more, to blame for the shambles that surrounds the current grass cutting/ estate maintenance char­ges.

Forest of Dean District Council has stated that grass cutting and other estate maintenance charges had always been paid from the Housing Revenue accounts, and that the monies in this account were raised solely from tenants' rents. I now accept this to be the case.

Having examined the council's 2002/2003 audited accounts it is almost impossible to identify exactly how individual items were paid or how money was raised.

What we are being asked to believe is that council tenants subsidised all freeholders in respect of grass cutting/estate maintenance for at least 22 years from 1981 (first council house purchased under the right to buy scheme) to 2003. This despite, according to Two Rivers Housing, there being provision within our conveyance documents for legal collection of such charges. Freeholders have never before been asked to contribute towards estate maintenance.

I would like to ask Forest of Dean District Council a number of questions, but mainly:

Why didn't you enforce the provision contained within the Fifth Schedule of freeholders' convey­ance documents unless like us, you believe no such provision exists.

Why didn't you seize the opportunity in 1993, following the introduction of council tax, and exercise your entitlement to collect estate maintenance charges from that tax?

The burden, then borne by tenants only, would have been shared by all residents within the parish.

Before suggesting that this would be unfair to residents on private estates please consider the following.

In1983 a private estate known as Wyebank, Sedbury, had part of its title of land (a large grassed area in Wyebank Road) jointly transferred from Forest of Dean District Council and its developer Permanent Homes to Tidenham Parish Council. I believe there is no evidence of any monies changing hands at that time. Between 1983 and 1993 Forest of Dean District Council paid for the parish council to cut and maintain the area of ground in Wyebank Road. Can Forest of Dean District Council tell us where that money came from? Did the council tenants pay on that occasion?

In 1993 (introduction of council tax) direct payments from Forest of Dean District Council ceased, and from that time until present day the parish council has collected a precept via council tax to pay for that maintenance on Wyebank. This means that every household within the parish, including council tenants, contributes towards the maintenance of land on a private estate.

Both the parish and county council have taken advantage of their entitlement to claim for maintenance charges through council tax.

Why didn't Forest of Dean District Council do the same in respect of its estate maintenance?

I don't believe that the Wyebank Estate is the only private estate in Forest of Dean District Council area benefiting from council tax payments, and this is contrary to what Tim Perrin, the then Chief Executive, claimed in 2008.

He stated at a full council meeting that councils could claim maintenance charges through council tax but that maintenance on private estates was paid for with commuted sums of money paid by developers on completion of an estate and not from council tax. What happens in respect of Wyebank suggests this isn't true.

Can Forest of Dean District Council tell us who paid for grass cutting on the former council estates between 2003 and 2008?

Most freeholders understand the reasons for the transfer of housing stock and the fact that tenants only had a right to vote on it. At no time in the build up to the transfer did the Forest of Dean District Council mention the unnecessary transfer of land, and the fact that it would cost every tenant and freeholder extra maintenance charges year after year. Would the council have been as confident of the outcome of the vote had they disclosed the full facts?

As their plans to transfer the title of land would have such a significant effect on me, I believe I should have been given the right to vote on that particular issue.

I ask all of the above under the Freedom of Information Act. – Philip Chalk, Sedbury.