YOUR report of 6th September tells us that the basic allowance for a Wiltshire Councillor is £13,199 a year.

As a Salisbury District Councillor, thirty years ago, I did a similar job.

lndeed l attended more than the 25 Council meetings per year mentioned in your report.

Yet my basic allowance was about £240 a year.

So today‘s councillors are receiving fifty-five times more money than those of thirty years ago.

ls, then, our standard of local government any better than it was thirty years ago?

Just have a look around the countryside and see the heaps of fly-tipped rubbish everywhere that have not been moved for months on end.

Malcolm Read

West Grimstead