‘I am losing all my savings because expenditure is higher than income’

• SO my council tax bill arrived and it’s depressing to see I am being charged what amounts to nearly 10 per cent of my annual net income.

Councillors are vocal about the cost of living and price rises in other areas but conspicuously quiet when it comes to council tax, which for me by comparison is higher than what I pay for water, gas, electricity, and telecoms combined; it is way higher than what I pay in income tax and National Insurance combined, and it even costs more than I pay on public transport.

Accompanying the bill is some dubious propaganda telling me how great this Labour council is and what help they offer to people in most need, for example, on low incomes like myself.

Well there are strings attached for obtaining any aid, and it is the usual get-out clause “…if you have savings”.

I was only encouraged to save because I have never earned a salary large enough to escape renting a home, and needed a much larger deposit to qualify for a mortgage.

Age is now against me so owning a property will never happen, but even the council’s cosy building deals do not result in homes that are affordable to people like myself.

So I am losing all my savings because expenditure is higher than income.

And regarding the Community Investment Programme deals, I wonder if Camden considers them a cash-cow since more private / empty homes equals more profitable council tax. Why else would Labour reject party members who disagree with the arrangements?

And I also question council leader Georgia Gould’s claim that they have “found a way” of building 500 new council homes.

It seems to me that this “way” is to first demolish / lose the existing council homes on a site, as witnessed around the corner from my where I live. Sounds like the usual fiddling of statistics.

A McKERAN,
York Way, N7