COUNCIL officers today defended a decision to post 12,000 letters to residents demanding council tax payments or threatening them with court.

The Evening Press reported yesterday how angry residents flocked to the Library Square tax office and jammed switchboards after the letters were sent.

The reminders were posted after a new council computer system carried out a sweep of all the people it judged to be in varying amounts of arrears - from one month to substantial sums - who did not pay by direct debit.

A City of York Council spokesman today defended the decision to send the backlog of reminders, and said that only an estimated two per cent may have been sent in error. He said most people at Library Square yesterday morning were making payments.

"There were some mistakes, which we apologise for, but we think only 200 out of 12,000 were mistakes."

He said the exercise had been "worthwhile" and added: "We will be adding up all the money that the exercise has brought in and that figure will be released."

Updated: 10:38 Wednesday, July 14, 2004