Sir, – Following Hambleton Council’s announcement it would pay bills within 20 working days, I said in my letter last week that taking four weeks is nothing to brag about.

This week, I received my copy of Hambleton News and I found they are doing just that. We are told 97pc of bills will be paid within 20 days (the ‘working’ is omitted, even though there was room for it, imprecision in the council’s favour) and this statement appears under the heading ‘On paying promptly’.

My dictionary defines ‘prompt’ as acting with alacrity, as done at once. Describing payment within four weeks as acting promptly is an abuse of the English language.

But, of course, that is what we expect of Hambleton News, propaganda distributed at our expense which never contains anything adverse about the council.

I have pointed out before that savings could be made by scrapping it. In the present financial climate, its disappearance would be welcome. It would not be missed.

D F SEVERS Trinity Gardens, Northallerton.