I READ with interest your article on the budget proposals (“Council unveils cuts to save £20 million”, The Press, February 5). By not taking a grant, the council is continuing to burden family finances stretched to the limit.

Leaving parks open invites vandalism. Addicts and vagrants will turn them into places where we will not be able to take our children.

The council needs to look again at how it spends our money. For example, when the street light opposite us was replaced, over a month there were eight separate visits to install it.

This has to be the most ridiculous waste of time and money that I have come across.

The green waste collections were the council’s idea, so why should we now pay extra? If the council closes the Towthorpe waste centre, we will be back to fly tipping.

The cost of cleaning up that mess is high. As for consultation, the council has already decided what it is going to do and won’t be listening to us any time soon.

This is just a sop to placate us so we have the illusion that our views have been taken in to consideration.

Elaine Mepham The Greenway, Haxby, York.