COME April we will be aware of local authority’s decisions to freeze rates or hike them.

There are about 350 council authorities in England and a third have opted not to increase bills.

Councils know that ratepayers, particularly those burdened with mortgages, with no recent wage increases and ever-increasing energy bills and food costs, struggle to find the extra penny.

Some councils are using loopholes to increase rates and are likely to lose government help.

I have no idea where Fenland District Council stands in the matter. Its decision needs to show sympathetic inclination to all that pay rates.

Councils should examine potential consequences of the estimated average household rise of £100 this year.

On a business level, increases will have a telling effect on traders.

Avoiding the dire image of dying towns must be avoided, as should premature glossy pictures of what we should like a town to be like at a time when the enormity of the unparalleled global austerity calls the shots.

In quoting your report I hope Wisbech will be “a thriving place in eight years time”. We all hope our communities will be better places.

Time is a treacherous yardstick. We do not even know what the morrow will bring, least of all the years ahead.

We live in unpredictable times ruled by forces unseen and beyond our control.

TREVOR BEVIS

St Peter’s Road

March