IN response to Dr Nigel Knott's letter of October 22: the district council sends out council tax bills but we only retain 10.5 per cent of the money to help pay for our services.

For 2004/05, we managed to limit the increase to our part of the bill to 4.5 per cent. In setting our tax level, we were certainly conscious of the interests of pensioners and indeed all taxpayers, and those interests remain at the forefront of our discussions for the coming year.

Dr Knott asked some specific questions: we do face increases in our payments to the pension fund, although we are looking at ways of keeping this as low as we can while meeting our obligations. We will also be looking to cover these increases by making savings elsewhere, rather than by taking the funding from council tax.

Council tax bandings are set by the Valuation Office, not the council, and are reviewed every 10 years. New valuations will be carried out next year for bills issued from April 2007 onwards, and this process will pick up any properties that have been extended or significantly improved.

Dr Knott asked about people running businesses from their homes if the property has been altered to accommodate the business, then they could be liable for non-domestic rates (business rates) as well as council tax. In such cases, an assessment is made to see what should be paid.

How much council tax we have to ask for is directly affected by how much funding we receive from the Government. We are lobbying the Government to reconsider how it funds smaller authorities like west Wiltshire, in the hope that we can get the money we are entitled to and therefore reduce council tax.

CLLR R WHILE

Finance & performance portfolio holder

WWDC