Business rates

NOT content with wasting Bexhill's council taxes on 'Gubby's Balls', the current seafront 'building site' with its dysfunctional 'shelters' (surely a contradiction in terms?), the loss of public toilets and the tourist information centre, our beloved Rother District Council has lately frittered away a further Â£70 on issuing a court summons against me for 'non-payment of non-domestic rates'.

That is “business rates” to you and I, which is the logical phrase, but it appears that there is no Department of Common Sense and Logic at Rother I cancelled my direct debit mandate earlier this year, as in May RDC deducted £53.29 more than per the instalment agreement.

I have since made regular monthly payments by cheque, which they have cashed but not deducted from my business rate balance. Hence the court summons.

So, due to their error, they have wasted another £70, and it occurs to me that our money would be better spent if we were to simply flush it down the toilet instead of handing it over to the Town Hall.

It may be worth reminding them that their job is that of civil servants, not civil masters. RDC has generated a policy of incompetance as in many aspects they seem immune to the views of the populace. Yet small businesses such as mine remain the lifeblood of the Bexhill community.

HAYLEY ATKINS

The Cats Whiskers

Sackville Road,

Bexhill-on-Sea