COUNCIL leader Alan Melton was unimpressed with our decision to return this week to the matter of councillors’ allowances and specifically to the mileage rates they receive.

Be that as it may, the plethora of paperwork from Fenland and other public bodies can mean that sometimes decisions get lost in transmission. This one certainly did.

If you recall back in February, Cllr Melton adopted an ‘on your bike’ attitude to some of his members pressing for the mileage rate to be upped from 40p to 45p. He believed then, quite rightly, that 40p was sufficient recompense and told them so in no uncertain terms.

But guess what? Nine months later and with an election comfortably behind him, and many councillors prospecting for even more public duties to be thrust upon them – together with attendant allowances and perks – up goes mileage from 40p to 45p.

And to cap the insult to voters’ intelligence, the council had the temerity to backdate that generous increase to May.

The breathtaking cheek of it.

The mind-boggling arrogance of it.

The commonsense-defying illogic of it.

It is time the independents and opposition members of Fenland Council started to clip the wings of these Tory-led excesses.

The Indies, hopefully, will have started yesterday by forcing a postponement of the monstrous �465,000 refurbishment of public loos – a review carried out furtively and hastily.