REGARDING the article It's The ftr Of City Travel (Monday April 24), the £1.3 million spent by City of York Council comes from its capital budget, not its revenue budget.

It is not, therefore, council taxpayers' money, the council says.

While technically correct, as the capital budget will be financed from borrowing via either the Public Works Loan Board or the financial institutions (banks), who service the debt (ie annual loan repayments and interest on the capital)?

Answer: the council does, out of its revenue budget, where the revenue comes from council tax payers' money, either directly through the council tax levy or indirectly through business rates (paid out of profits earned from council tax payers' spending with local businesses) or government grant (paid from income tax collected from council taxpayers who are also income taxpayers, and corporation tax paid out of profits earned from council taxpayers' spending).

So either the purpose of the council's statement on the capital budget is intended to spin or is about the technical semantics of the up-front financing of the capital budget. But let's get honest with the local taxpayers in York. At the end of the day, they do finance the capital budget.

I'd be really worried if our local elected council members don't recognise this when taking decisions on capital budget spending - this is council taxpayers' money, spending already committed for the future to service the debt arising from today's capital spending decisions.

G Derek McMahon,

Marlborough Close,

Rawcliffe Manor,

Rawcliffe, York.

Updated: 09:50 Thursday, April 27, 2006