SIR — I was disturbed to read the report stating that Somerset County Council intends to freeze its Council Tax bills for the fifth year in a row (Free Press January 17).

It was this same behaviour by then Tory-led West Somerset Council that drove it to go virtually bust.

Although we all dislike inflation, the fact is that, even in this time of low interest rates, it still exists.

By refusing to increase their Council Tax, even in line with inflation, the county council will compound its losses and eventually reduce its income to such a low level that it will be unable to meet all its obligations to taxpayers.

This cause of the district council's financial problems was clearly made in this newspaper some months ago.

So if the county council continues to follow this potentially disastrous path, can we expect it to go bust some time in the future, or will it just continue to cut services to such a dangerously low level that they might as well not exist at all?

David Shevels,

Church View,