YET again, Cllr John Walsh completely misses the point, only on this occasion it is on a subject of immense importance - the new Food Standards Agency. He says it is unfair to introduce a flat rate of less than £2 a week on food outlets. I would like to point out to him that Salmonella, E-Coli and other nasty illnesses do not discriminate when it comes to the size of food outlet. It does not matter how big the business is, they can all make someone ill if proper hygiene procedures are not followed.

What Mr Walsh is advocating is a bureaucratic nightmare which would require more bureaucrats costing millions of pounds of taxpayers' money, just to administer a system that sets different levies according to size or turnover.

After all, two butchers on opposite sides of a road may be the same size with similar turnover yet one may be part of a chain of 30 other butchers and the other a single shop. Down the road there may be another butcher who owns three other shops - can you imagine the complexity of charging different levys to each of these. Income Tax would certainly have to be raised to cope with the massive administration costs.

Mr Walsh's sudden transformation into a tax and spend politician may be welcomed by the Liberal Democrats, but it doesn't really add up when he appears in the same paper calling for cuts to council tax.

Mrs P Ferguson

Dentdale Close, Bolton

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