Rates and values

I was a bit stunned by the ridiculous comment from your correspondent Kent Millar about rates going up $20 a week at the same time as house values are going up about $1500, and how he, therefore, felt no sympathy for the “poor little rich kids”.

Really? Is that $1500 cash in our hands? We moved to the North Shore in 1981 from Napier, and worked hard to pay what for the time was a big mortgage. We are now retired with our income being the state pension plus what we have managed to save.

The rates are worryingly high for those on fixed or limited incomes. The increases in the value of our house is irrelevant.

Margaret McDonnell, Glenfield.