Nobody underestimates the serious position of Lincolnshire Police concerning underfunding, but that cannot be an excuse for playing a game of "rock, paper, scissors" with the Government, which the Police Authority could not be expected to win.

There was little consideration of whether the citizens of Lincolnshire could afford an increase of 78.9 per cent. Now we are faced with a re-billing exercise, which could cost up to £1,000,000.

That cost will fall on the Police Authority – but hold on – their money comes from you, the council tax payers.

They were wrong in supporting 78.9 per cent, as were many county councillors, because:

1 There was a serious danger (not yet averted) of politicising the police debate.

2 Had they opted for a reasonable increase, perhaps even greater than the 26 per cent final settlement, they might have had more chance of it passing the muster of central government. They might also have secured unanimity, instead of the present reluctance of many to support such a huge rise.

3 They have made any future cases much more difficult to pursue, since they have damaged their credibility with government and the public.

4 They have given an almost impossible inheritance to new Chief Constable Richard Crompton.

The Police Authority have not presented their case well to the public, the Government or to the councillors.

Let us hope there will be no redundancies. One of the few matters on which the public might be expected to support a council tax rise would be for more policemen.

Nothing should stop us still protesting that Lincolnshire is treated less fairly than other counties when it comes to policing. Nothing should stop us from drawing attention to the inequality of the formula used to calculate grant, which contains oddities such as "pubs per square kilometre" and "density of population".

Lincolnshire and South Holland remain sparsely populated and therefore difficult to police with limited resources.

It took us decades to get government to acknowledge the difficulty of delivering services in sparsely populated areas but that information has not yet filtered down to the officials who calculate police grant.

There is still a need for a unanimous appeal to government for fairness and equality in dealing with police matters. Trying to impose a 78.9 per cent increase has made the success of any such approach very much more difficult.

CHRIS BREWIS

Independent County Councillor for Little Sutton, Long Sutton, Sutton Bridge and Wingland