Cllr Vikki Slade, the Lib Dem leader on BCP Council, is wrong to describe the Tory spin on our council tax rise this year as ‘pretty disingenuous’ (Echo 24 Jan).

The council report produced by the ruling Tories attempts to brand our council tax increases since 2019 as being well below that set by other councils and well below the increases allowed nationally.

They talk of a zero increase this year.

However, the Tory report is flat wrong with this message.

Their report provides data which compares rises for BCP only when BCP was equalising different council tax levels and attempts to airbrush away the actual four per cent increase this year.

Since the Tories imposed this BCP Council on the three towns four years ago, Poole has seen average annual rises of 3.4 per cent, not far short of the maximum allowed nationally which averaged 3.7 per cent.

The massive savings the Tories promised us with this new BCP Council was £45.3 million annually.

Such savings would have financed six years of zero council tax increase across the whole of BCP.

But, like this year’s supposed zero council tax increase, that £45.3 million was simply contrived nonsense.

So this Tory spin is not ‘pretty disingenuous’. It is far far worse.

DR MARTIN RODGER

Bloxworth Road, Parkstone