Council tax in Sussex has been increasing well above the inflation rate for the last five years.

But this spring the increases will be bigger than ever and there will be worse to come.

The past rises have been because the Government has found hiking up what people pay locally is a back-door way of raising taxes.

But future rises will be more because the Government has changed the formula for funding local authorities so that generally the South-East suffers.

There could be rises of up to 20 per cent in some charges this year while the services offered will be less because councils will have to make cuts worth millions of pounds.

This is grossly unfair to people in the South in general and Sussex in particular where the £1,000 a year council tax bill will soon become the norm.

No cogent explanation has yet been given for it by local government minister Nick Raynsford, normally a reasonable politician who understands how local authorities work.

The suspicion among many Sussex councillors, not all of them Conservative, will be that Labour is favouring friends in northern heartlands.

Every council tax payer in Sussex will think it wrong. It is particularly unjust on the many low-income households.

The sooner the Government realises few of us are fat cats in the South, the better.