Sir, – What an immense pleasure it was to pick up the D&S Times on February 4 and read the headline “22 councillors may go to save £200,000”. It can’t come too soon enough.

I well remember Denis Healey saying that members were elected to “do something – not to be something”. This does not seem to be the case in my experience with Hambleton District Council, where those elected don’t want to know after polling day and fall into a comfortable rut of doing “very little to nothing” and of course we, the hard-pressed residents, pay them to do it!

Further, while Hambleton District Council is sorting its finances out, it needs to get rid of all the idle over-paid shiny bottoms, of which there are many and who wouldn’t recognise an honest day’s work if it hit them in the face.

After all, it was proved beyond all reasonable doubt when Hambleton closed “shop” for a fortnight over Christmas/New Year and did not give a tinker’s cuss about the residents of the district, but of course, we residents still had to pay for the whole of the outfit once again – doing nothing.

ALAN GATENBY Aiskew, Bedale.