Tired of not having your bins coll­ected when they should? Driving on substandard roads? Waiting for potholes to be filled? Too few beds to look after our elderly properly? Or simply sick and tired of paying more council taxes each year for poorer levels of service?

Local government finances are a shambles.

This publication has and will continue to point out where salaries are too high for senior council staff, where councils get inordinate pay rises, or where scarce resources are poorly used and wasted, and where mismanagement and inept leadership both by elected and non-elected officials urinate away our hard-earned taxes.

But it is also time we held a serious debate on just how our local governments ought to be funded. And whether we are all really paying what should be a fair share.

While the disbursement from Cardiff will never be enough to pay for our services, the remaining shortfall has to be contributed locally. That’s why this newspaper will continue to kick and scream at waste by our local officials.

But there is a fundamental flaw in how the finding for this region is calculated.

The provision of services is based on information gleaned by census figures. When those census surveys are completed, the populations of Gwynedd and Ceredigion, Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire are at their natural lowest. But come the summer months, with the thankful influx of holiday-makers to their caravans and chalets, our under-funded services creak.

Sure, second-home owners face the prospect of paying expensive premiums on their properties. That’s no doubt a welcome source of extra funds for our councils.

But what if those who have mobile homes in the hundreds of parks that pervade our beaches and hills, contributed something for the upkeep of the area where they choose to holiday?

Because caravans don’t have permanent links, they can’t be taxed. The parks themselves are taxed, certainly not though at a level that adequately reflects the number of mobile homes on their sites.

Isn’t it time our local governments had powers to apply a levy on each of those caravans pitched up year round?

The danger, of course, is that our councils can’t be trusted to spend those monies wisely…