SIR – Tory councillor Chris Mitchell accuses Labour city councillors of “taxing for the sake of taxing” and being “unethical” (Worcester News, March 4). Many Worcester residents will have noticed reductions in council services over the last decade because council tax has been reduced in real terms year after year, but costs have increased.

For example, we now have fewer environmental health officers who check food safety in restaurants and takeaways and fewer officers to check that our taxis are safe.

Those officers work very hard but with fewer of them fewer checks can be made.

CCTV monitors are being watched less often, risking rises in crime and anti-social behaviour.

Residents who call the council’s Hub to report a problem or seek advice often wait for long periods before their call is answered or to speak to an officer who can help them, and sometimes promised calls back don’t happen.

Flowers around the riverside and in street baskets are a thing of the past and in parks and on roundabouts the floral displays are much reduced.

Tory councillors justify freezing the council tax because they have produced a “balanced budget” but this hides the fact that every year the council has less money to spend on services and delivers less and less to our residents. At the same time the Tory cabinet is considering borrowing about £10 million to pay for a new swimming pool and residents will be paying this back over the next 40 years.

Labour and Green councillors wanted to increase council tax by just one penny per day per household this year, to stop our services getting even less. Nobody wants to pay more for anything in these tough times but neither do people want to see their services being reduced anymore. Readers will judge for themselves who is being unethical.

JO HODGES Labour city councillor for Warndon