This is an open letter addressed to anyone who spends my council tax.

You may not be aware that this once great country of ours, which used to govern much of the world, has now become a laughing stock, and is in a serious financial decline which will take 10 years to rectify.

The average peasant has to cut corners with his spending and pay increased taxes so that fat cat bankers, overpaid council executives and MPs don’t go short.

A growing number of people appear to have no concerns whatsoever about spending taxpayers’ money on useless unnecessary schemes – one of which, is the untimely hair-brained plan to pedestrianise more of Oxford city centre.

Apparently no one knows what the eventual cost of this development will be. But you can bet your last soup kitchen voucher that the costs will be astronomical – and will also go way over budget.

I, however, have a master plan: build walls from sandbags at the ends of the designated roads to stop vehicular access, with small openings left for pedestrians to walk through. This would give the same results for a fraction of the price.

If the people in charge of council coffers actually looked at ways of reducing spending instead of charging ahead, throwing other people’s money away like confetti, we could even reach a position where council taxes were reduced.

This may come as a bombshell to some, but the phrase ‘credit crunch’ is a reference to the state of the economy and not a new type of chocolate bar.

Tony Anchors, Didcot