MONEY frozen during the Icelandic banks crisis should be returned according to West Sussex County Council.
Alongside Sussex Police Authority, the council wrote to Chancellor Alistair Darling today (October 10) demanding back the millions of pounds frozen when the UK-licensed Heritable Bank was taken into administration.
The county council has £12.9m invested in Heritable, while the Sussex Police Authority has invested £6.8m.
Click here to listen to the county council podcast with county treasurer Bryan Robinson explaining how likely it is that they'll get their money back. (Opens new Windows Media Player window)Tax-payers' costsThe letter is being sent by county council leader Henry Smith; Louise Goldsmith, cabinet member for finance and resources, and Lionel Barnard, chairman of Sussex Police Authority.
"We understand that the government is already taking steps to ensure that individual retail depositors will be protected from loss in respect of the cash they have placed with Heritable," said the letter.
"We can see absolutely no reason why our individual council tax payers, whose money our deposits are, should be treated any differently from individual the depositors you are already protecting.
Demands"In many cases, our council taxpayers are less able to shoulder the loss than individual depositors."
The letter continues: "We are demanding your assurance that our deposits in Heritable will be underwritten by the government in exactly the same way as deposits in the equally UK-licensed major banks and institutions."
The money in Heritable accounts is surplus cash balances being held for future use.
What do you think?How worried are you about the affects of the Icelandic banking crisis?
What should the government do?
Share your views, comment below, email the Herald and Gazette series or write in to Readers' Letters, Herald and Gazette series, Cannon House, Chatsworth Road, Worthing, BN11 1NA.
Click here for West Sussex County Council's podcast site.-------------------------------------
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