THE question ‘What do we get for our council tax?’ was posed by Joan Mason (Letters, September 25) and deserves an answer.

Annual costs (approx) are: adult care and wellbeing £70 million, children’s services £43m, transport subsidies £5m, rubbish collection and disposal £14m, road maintenance £10m, income from council tax £81m.

You will see from this that council tax – just 25% of our income – does not even cover the cost of adult and child care.

Just one child in full-time care costs about £200,000 a year. A ‘band D’ house pays £1,250 per year in council tax so we need 160 band D houses paying council tax to cover the cost of one such child.

Add to this street lighting/cleaning, flood defences, staff wages, property maintenance, loan repayments, public health, charity support, inflation and the position is evident.

We are not alone. Every council in the country faces the same problem.

We get income from council tax, business rates, car parking and government grants (which have been drastically cut).

The difference between falling income and rising costs by 2017 will be about £65m. That is why full council agreed last year to make cuts.

Annual costs have been reduced by £35m so far. Another £30m has to be found over the next two to three years.

Readers know they cannot spend more than their income and neither can the council. The answer is to grow our economy and increase prosperity.

So far we have attracted £90m of private investment in the new retail centre, seen huge development in the Enterprise Zone, laid plans for new roads, a by-pass opening up land for houses and businesses, all critical for growth and jobs.

Road repairs like the cross in Ledbury are going ahead since we secured extra government money. We have also begun discussions for a new university and our core strategy was submitted to the inspector for approval last week. If anyone has better plans, we haven’t seen them yet.

This Conservative administration is committed to the protection of the vulnerable and children, to responsible financial management of your taxes, a willingness to make difficult but unavoidable decisions, concrete plans for economic growth and a vision for the future.

TONY JOHNSON Herefordshire Council Leader