Your paper recently exposed the astonishing £5.5 millions of taxpayers’ money that is being shared by 29 council officers across the county who have been made redundant in the move to the new Wiltshire Council.

My own research, using the powers of the Freedom of Information Act, has since uncovered more redundancies at costs which continue to beggar belief.

North Wiltshire District Council alone will have made 11 staff redundant this tax year, at a cost to the local taxpayer of £1.8 million – on average that is in excess of £160,000 each.

Few people finding themselves out of work in these difficult times are lucky enough to be treated to so generous a helping of taxpayers’ money.

In the previous year, six redundancies cost the council £160,000 in total. For all the talk of efficiency savings, the average cost to the local taxpayer of making a single North Wiltshire District Council employee redundant has increased six-fold in just one year.

These improved severance terms are the result of a decision made last summer, in secret by senior Conservative councillors including council leaders Dick Tonge and Jane Scott.

Why did they increase the council’s redundancy liabilities immediately before a staff re-structuring exercise, and why did they increase them to such a high level?

Your readers deserve an explanation and, I suggest, an apology.

Duncan Hames, Prospective MP for Chippenham (Lib Dem), The Walk, Holt