BURY Council has recently saddled us with a £1,420 council tax bill in respect of our Band B terraced house.

A more appropriate day to deliver this swingeing, inflation-busting demand would have been April 1.

A £17 million mansion in London's Belgravia District attracts a council tax levy that is, astonishingly, £44 less than Bury Council is demanding of us for our Spartan accommodation.

This grotesque discrepancy not only exposes the dysfunctionality of a top heavy, final-salary burdened organization but, also, the drastic need for a much-expanded council tax banding system.

Bury's Labour controlled councils have long been responsible for handing out eye-watering monetary spankings to its house-holding hostages.

Regrettably, they still appear doctrinally wedded to a discredited socialist ethos that assumes you can spend your way out of any trying situation.

Methinks a Knowsley Street spring clean is way overdue.

Pete Haworth

Holcombe Road

Greenmount