I AM shocked by the six per cent increase in our Council Tax which, for pensioners like myself, is a hike too far.

My state pension will increase by three per cent but what is given with one hand is taken back plus with another!

How this inefficient council can justify this increase is beyond me.

I see no extra police on the roads and streets, no increase in bin collections or any improvement of many roads that have potholes galore.

What I do see is a waste of money spent on a firework display in partnership with Liverpool City Council and litter on the streets and green areas, due to a cutback on staff who once kept our town tidy.

I see Birkenhead Market resembling a ghost town with more than half of the shops closed and I see nothing but charity shops in the precinct and shuttered units.

This council spent £2 million on bringing in management consultants, to do what exactly?

If our council is short of ideas they should not be in office; the consultants were asked to identify what impact the Liverpool One shopping precinct would have on Birkenhead shopping centre, I mean really?

Did we need to pay a company to tell us that a very large proportion of Wirral shoppers would defect to the state-of-the-art centre in Liverpool?

What humbug, what a waste of money.

I could have told them that.

They did nothing to avert this exodus of shoppers to over the water.

The £1.4m paid to senior directors is an insult to the people of Wirral who have another six per cent council tax; we need to get shut of them.

Len Griffiths, Prenton