The other day I went to pay my council tax, escorted by an armed guard, and later decided to compare this current tax, one of the highest in the North of England, to the rating system of 50 years ago.
It goes without saying that the rates included water, police, fire - the lot - so to make a fair comparison these items must be added to the council tax. I apologise if any reader suffers from shock but the results for my cottage in Nafferton are mos
t revealing.
1957 - rates £540 per annum or two shillings (10p) per week.
2008 - council tax plus £1,500 per annum or £30 per week.
Simply put, the rise in those years equates to 300 fold.
Now, obviously wages have risen, but using my O level maths, I multiplied the average wage of 1957 by 300 and the result for 2008 came to about £1,500 per week which unless you are a GP is clearly ridiculous.
So maybe the services provided have substantially improved?
The East Riding has the dubious honour of having the worst roads in England (official).
The police force, which in 1948 had a strength of 297 (Hull and North Lincs were completely separate), is now conspicuous by its absence.
Gone are the days when villages such as Nafferton, Burton Agnes and Cranswick had their own resident bobby.
Villages employed their own road sweeper complete with broom and barrow and there wasn't the filth laid around in the streets such as Market Place, Driffield.
However, all is not doom and gloom. Sixteen-year-olds can now have a scooter 'on the house' to buzz around on and some of them are paid to stay on at school.
The residents of villages such as Gembling and Fimber will also be cock-a-hoop to know that all material spewing out of County Hall is available in 16 languages, so if Kurdish, Pashtu or Urdu is your choice then great - but please don't ask the East Yorkshire dialect or Textspeak.
Apologies, got to go and do a bit of recycling, namely the East Riding News.
C Horsman, of Coppergate, Nafferton
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