So, the chief executive of Southend Council has agreed to a 7 per cent pay cut.

What great news. Instead of earning £3,542 per week he will take £3,288 – far more than the majority of workers in Southend earn in the course of a month!

And so much more than the Prime Minister, who, I assume, works far longer hours, is more or less permanently on call and has far greater responsibility.

Since Mr Tinlin joined the council the number of staff earning more than £100,000 has increased substantially.

Indeed, wasn’t it at the time he was appointed all the “super senior” department heads came into this bracket?

I dread to think how many are now receiving more than £100,000 each year.

Do these people do all the work themselves? No, they have other workers, whose wages have been frozen or been given increases so small they do not even cover the cost of an increased fare on the buses.

So please Mr Tinlin don’t say we are receiving value for money.

I recently read 18 per cent of our council tax is spent just to pay interest on council borrowing. Yet our councillors still persist in coming up with ideas such as a museum on the cliffs. a pavillion on the pier that looks as if it will be blown away in the first gale, and a new library.

Plus look how many hundreds of thousands we are paying out because the cafe in Warrior Square is unlet, the unit next to the new lift is still in a raw state and we are spending many thousands in compensation and to put right shoddy work done on Pier Hill years ago.

Where were our super senior department heads when all this was going on?

Why was no one overseeing these jobs, thereby giving us value for money?

P Freeman
Sackville Road
Southend