Letters, contributions and comments sent in to the Advertiser this week.

Don’t up tax use reserves

John Kelly, Tarling Street, Shadwell, writes:

Fulham and Hammersmith Council have just announced to the great delight of their residents that council tax will be frozen for the third successive year,and a Labour council to boot.

Yet the long suffering residents of Tower Hamlets have suffered two years of high totally unneccessary increases.

This is for no other reason than to fund massive pay increases for the mayor and councillors, funding waste.

John Biggs (Tower Hamlets mayor) has done nothing to curb this waste, gross over staffing, financing a shoddy quarterly magazine, backing the scandalous spending of Tower Hamlets Homes, again in over staffing.

The council tax could easily be frozen or reduced if he had the integrity to stand by his pre election promises.

I would urge residents with elections in May to go out in force and show your displeasure at being taken for idiots by this council.

Plus what about the massive amount held in reserve by the council.

To myself and other people this is a indication we have been taxed to heavily for years by these imcompetants.

World Book Day can inspire young

Alison Tweed, chief executive of Book Aid International, writes:

Every year at the beginning of March, school children across the UK mark World Book Day.

Many will dress up as a character from a favourite book or be part of special reading activity – and families and schools will once again generously give to charity.

World Book Day is a worldwide celebration, but in many countries, children go to school with just a few tattered textbooks.

At Book Aid International, we send around one million books a year to thousands of libraries and schools. Two thirds of these books are for children. They are read by millions of young readers in 20 countries.

We can only support children around the world because families and schools choose to support us on World Book Day and I would like to thank all those who will do so this year.

If you are a parent or teacher looking for inspiration, please visit bookaid.org/world-book-day, where you’ll find fundraising ideas, fun activities and specially created free DIY dress-up guides (developed with busy parents in mind!).

It costs just £2 to send a book, so every penny you raise will make a difference.