FIRST we read that the leader of Herefordshire Council says taxpayers must not look a gift horse in the mouth (Letters, January 15). He recommends the use of £100,000 a year to fund some unspecified running costs of the Marches Enterprise Zone (EZ).

Then we read that it is the Joint Executive Committee (JEC) of the Marches LEP providing that £100,000 a year, from additional business rates (Hereford Times, January 22). Apparently Mr Johnson described the instigation of 'call-in' by the council's Scrutiny Committee looking at these arrangements as "ludicrous".

Why should it be "ludicrous" for scrutiny to hold the JEC to account? It will not be the LEP funding EZ costs up to the value of £100,000 a year; it will be Herefordshire Council, until such time as the additional business rates generated in the EZ start to bring in a return of the same amount.

It is important to support the Enterprise Zone, but economic viability must be at its core. Hand-outs of open-ended public funding do not bode well in these straitened times.

There are many other businesses in the county who would welcome the advantageous deals offered to EZ newcomers.

VICTORIA WEGG-PROSSER Breinton