I would pay our council tax demands more willingly if there could be a fairer system for retirement pensioners.

How can it be fair to be left with just £9 from the state pension for ten weeks of the year when paying by instalments? In 1999, the figure was £29.

What we need is a 20 per cent reduction in council tax to compensate for the shortfall.

Three years ago, MP Andrew Smith implied that the Government would implement something fairer for pensioners by 2003.

I was naive enough to believe him.

What had changed in March this year when the new demands arrived? Nothing.

Mr Smith does not have the time to read all the letters he receives.

If your correspondent Bryan Compton (Oxford Mail, May 8) writes to him, he will get a reply eventually, as I did, but it will be from an assistant, not Mr Smith.

I have a dossier, over two years, of letters expressing people's anger, worries and fears over payments.

Nothing changes, and we are obliged to keep on paying the ever-increasing demands.

How cheering it was to read the estimated percentage rises for county tax for the next three or four years.

ERENA HODGES

Manor Drive

Horspath

Oxford