I read with amazement Cllr David Smith’s opposition to a raise in the proposed taxable rate for Bournemouth taxpayers (Daily Echo Sat 21st Dec).

Is this the same council that has £86k to spend on welcome signs to the town, presumably for people who don’t know where they are.

The same council that has £8.6million to spend on demolishing a seafront building. The same council that wastes vast amounts of public money on pointless committee and cabinet meetings, where little or nothing is debated or discussed, everything having been decided before the meeting is held.

The same council that has refused to charge a late night levy to assist the Police in their public responsibility to keep law and order. The same council that signed off 12 ‘Confidentiality’ agreements for a total of £226k in 2012. The same council that runs a public relations department, just so that you the public, can be told just what they, the council, want you to hear ?

So many ways to save money on frivolous local government expenditure. Even so, very few people would object to extra money being raised to enable the Police to do their job. With a small whit of intelligent application a sliding scale of extra council tax can be applied, exempting those who can least afford it.

The real issue, one supposes, is that the present administration would not want to offend the electorate on the run in to the next local elections.

Geoff Cooper, Methuen Road, Bournemouth