Your headline, telling that the rent to be charged in respect of a Girl Guide group in Honiton would be increased by 1,200 per cent amazed me.

Your headline, telling that the rent to be charged in respect of a Girl Guide group in Honiton would be increased by 1,200 per cent amazed me.

The parents of all these young girls pay extraordinary high rates and taxes. The leaders are volunteers who give their time. They have to be checked by our very busy health and safety folk, who appear to multiply like flies. They are employed by our dear county council. I assume our little Girl Guides pay their wages out of the new rent?

The people working at County Hall and the Knowle statistically are shown to take off more time from work due to their poor health via "sickies".

They enjoy free car parking in their very large car parks. So do our police at Middlemoor, whilst hard working nurses are obliged to pay to go to work. Is this fair?

I am sure that I read somewhere that free parking for employees should be regarded as a 'taxable benefit' - if so, let these employees of our various public departments pay the rent for these future citizens?

After all, these privileged people retire before the rest of us. Then they have time to take up further employment; with yet another pension. An old pal of mine retired from a fairly senior position in the police and, he told me that his pension was �800 per week! All attached to the cost of living.

According to the papers, chief officers in local government receive a salary of �200,000 per year. Yet this little Girl Guide group might be obliged to cease!

D M Ryan

Winters Lane

Ottery St Mary