COUNCILLOR John Walsh says that a £2 charge on food outlets is too much to safeguard our health and unfair on food outlets.

Well, I think it is more unfair that every family in Bolton is being asked to pay over £150 a year to clean up the BSE chaos. This is a flat charge forced on the British taxpayer by Mr Walsh's discredited Conservative government and does not discriminate between whether you are a pensioner, unemployed, disabled or a millionaire; we are all sharing the burden of the Tories' mistake.

If Mr Walsh had an ounce of remorse for this scandalous tax burden, which has been forced on some of the most vulnerable members in society, he would have used the opportunity of writing to the BEN to apologise for his party's actions while they were in government, instead of moaning about a charge on food outlets which amounts to no more than the price of a Big Mac.

Cllr Betty McCracken

(Horwich Ward)

Whitton Mews, Horwich

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