BEFORE congratulating Wirral Council on its 'u-turn' on parking charges, let us pause.

It is one of the oldest of bureaucratic tricks to begin with an outrageous charge – in this case £4 per visit to walk your dog for half-an-hour – then dramatically reduce it to what the bureaucrats had thought of in the first place.

The whole point of parks open to the general public is that they should be free, not used as cash cows by an incompetent local council.

Instead, this might be the time for this council to call in the loans made without public consent to other councils and use that money for various urgent local purposes.

I do not pay my council tax in order to be deprived of the very local services for which it was asked for in the first place.

Instead of always blaming someone else for allegedly not having necessary funds, Wirral Council should take a good long look at itself.

Mrs Evelyn Campbell-Smith, Greasby