In recent weeks it has become obvious that the CPZ charges are not what the residents concerned have previously supposed them to be. Some people have described them as a stealth tax, since they are now much greater than the cost of providing a parking service to residents.

However this is only partly true. The charges have two parts. A basic part which pays for controlled parking service, the excess being the the parking tax.

It is rather disappointing that, up to now, Barnet Council seems to have been mute on this important issue.

It would be of great general interest if someone in Barnet's accountants department could inform your readers of the amount of the basic part. This, the parking service charge per household, can be calculated by dividing the total cost of running the service by the number of households concerned.

It would also be of great interest if a representative of Barnet Council could justify in print the imposition of this tax.

The fact that this kind of taxation is widely used in London, and that it has been practised for a long time, is neither a valid, or relevant, or acceptible, justification.

Neither is it a justification to say that the residents incur this extra tax burden because they have requested their inclusion in a CPZ. Very few residents would ever happily have volunteered to pay a parking tax in addition to a parking service charge.

We all know that the present financial situation is extremely difficult. Extra tax revenue has to be found somewhere. But this tax is not a fair way to do it, since it falls heavily on some, but not at all on others.

Governments at whatever level have always sought to impose various types of taxes in less than open ways, which often fall unevenly in the community, rather than being straightforward.

The only fair way is to openly set the COuncil tax rate in 2005-2006 such that the required revenue is raised.

Since the tax rates have already been set for the financial year 2004-2005, the parking tax which residents now have to pay should be credited to them for the next financial year.

In the current climate, it would not be surprising if some aggrieved residents were to take a leaf out of the senior citizens book, and having paid the full CPZ sum demanded, were then set the amount of parking tax that they have paid against the annual council tax sum demanded.