Sir - I have just received my council tax demand for the coming year, together with all those funny little leaflets from the various authorities I am paying for that tell me nothing, at length, complete with supporting statistics.

I see that one of the benefits from the county council is maintaining the roads, which remain in their usual disgraceful state, from the crumbling Western Bypass, via Banbury Road which is migrating in small pieces on to the pavement, and the steadily subsiding area of Sunderland Avenue to the side road round the corner from me.

It's no wonder there are so many 4x4 owners, now that we can all get a convincingly bumpy off-road experience without ever leaving the tarmac.

Do we have the wrong type of highway authority, or am I paying the wrong kind of tax?

Philip Cresswell, Oxford