SIR – We somehow seem to have lost the plot. Our local councils are run by unelected almost unaccountable civil servants.

Our councillors, as we well know, are in the main self-promoting. So whatever happens with our money – the council tax and let alone what streams down from our income tax – is down to these grey faces in their equally grey suits and their even worse communications jargon.

They really are a breed apart.

That is why we get such bizarre ideas and decisions from town and county halls where none of us seems able to make any difference. And to such profligate and ill-directed spending of our cash. I wonder, for example, where they stash our cash? Not by any chance in an Icelandic bank?

The idea that democracy exists at a local level is laughable. Yes, we get a chance to vote for our councillors and too many of us never bother but that is the only time we can kick out those we disagree with.

In the years in between, the council’s union-shielded staff just get on with doing essentially what they feel should be done.

LUKE ALBARIN,

Worcester.