LAST week Mark Brown lambasted Andover Town Council for its ineffective attempts at organising commemorations for the centenary of the start of the First World War, and I can only endorse what he said.

We have 19 elected councillors, they have an annual budget of over £100,000, and all they seem to do is to sub-contract managing the Christmas lights and allotments.

We might as well not have a town council for that little, and their plans for the centenary just add insult to injury.

I have looked on the Internet to get ideas from other towns, and such events include special film showings, amateur dramatic group performances, flag-raising and sundowner ceremonies, marches and parades by military units that have the Freedom of the Town, poetry readings, temporary exhibitions, a book of condolence – the ideas are endless from just a few minutes surfing the web.

If this town council is to survive and do any good for the town, it has to have some enthusiasm and dynamism injected into it, or be reduced to the equivalent status of a parish council in order to reduce the cost to the taxpayer.

Steve Mckellar, Salisbury Road, Andover