RE: The committee set up to examine the possibility of creating a town council for High Wycombe. The non-political group is chaired by Bucks Free Press Editor Steve Cohen.

AS A pensioner, I object to the proposal for the creation of a Wycombe Town Council, as reported in your newspaper on February 22.

It is unclear to me what purpose such an extra layer of bureaucracy would serve.

The district council is the planning authority for Wycombe and I am sure that existing democratic arrangements are perfectly adequate for bringing local concerns to the attention of the planning authority without the intervention of another body which would appear to have no precise role in the matter.

Do we really need the costly services of yet more paid staff and elected councillors, who would merely duplicate the functions already performed by existing bodies?

Surely we should be looking at proposals for amalgamating the various tiers of local government into a unitary body to achieve economies, rather than further fragmenting an already chaotic system.

The proposed town council would have no real function, yet would add about £300,000 to the council tax bill - this at a time when rationalisation of the local government system is tending towards a reduction in the numbers of local authorities, rather than a proliferation of them.

Brian Wheeler Maybrook Gardens High Wycombe