SIR - I find it incredible that councillors can not only spend more than £5m on Cornmarket Street in Oxford but can also afford £240,000 on seats.

All this while pleading poverty and claiming that it will need to sell £30m of city assets to pay for repairs to council housing.

If our councillors were to get a grip on reality and stopped their grandiose schemes, we would not be in this position.

Those councillors should do the honourable thing and resign. The officers and managers responsible should be sacked. We should not be expected to tolerate and pay for such incompetence.

I know of a 92-year-old pensioner who is expected to live in a council house that has rising damp, no heating except an ancient gas fire, substandard electrics and an unhygienic kitchen.

It is such a long time sincet the council did any work on the house that it still has gas light fittings.

After numerous attempts, we managed to make an appointment for the estates manager and surveyor to inspect the property.

On the morning of the appointment, the estates manager decided, for some unknown reason, that he would not bother to call and cancelled not only his visit but that of the surveyor, without having the decency to tell us as we waited at the house.

When the surveyor eventually inspected it, conditions were so bad he wanted to declare it unfit for human habitation.

Having finished with Cornmarket Street, councillors are setting their sights on Bonn Square.

How much more money can they squander? How many attempts will it take them to get it right? How much will my next council tax bill rise to pay for their incompetence?

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