Council tax savings will fund playground visits

YET again, Jayne Dowle has focussed on a single aspect of life with which she disagrees.

In her article (Yorkshire Post, May 16) about the proposed introduction of fees to access “a rather splendid-looking adventure playground” for children living in Wandsworth, she appears to have completely ignored the fact that Wandsworth Council has one of the lowest rates of council tax in the country.

At present, I pay £2,159.20 to live in my Band F property in Embsay; were I to live in a Band F property in Wandsworth then I would pay £984.59, a substantial saving of £1,174.61 per annum, or £22.59 per week, which would allow me to pay for my child to play in the adventure playground every day of the week and still have £5 change in my pocket.

Even taking the base Band D property, there is a difference of £813.19 (£1,494.83 – £681.64) which would enable my child to play in the playground for six days-a-week and leave me with 64p change.

Funding has to come from somewhere and, apparently, the majority of the users of this facility do not live in the borough and include the children of tourists, so why should they not pay? The alternative is for Wandsworth residents to pay the same as residents in Craven and what would Jayne say then?

If she wants to become a campaigner, then wouldn’t she best serve her readers by campaigning for a long-overdue change to the system of council tax in general whereby the inequalities are removed, and everyone is treated equally?