WALTHAM Forest Ratepayers' Action Group claimed this week that the council has broken a promise it made to residents when they put up the rates by 62%.

They say Council Leader Neil Gerrard said anyone who got in trouble paying the increased rates would be treated sympathetically by the council.

Yet last week 28 year old housewife Diane Sandle of Vicarage Road, Leyton, was taken to court-- even though she does not owe a penny.

She fell behind at the start of the rates protest campaign, but cleared this £190 by cheque and has since been paying on a monthly mandate.

But Waltham Forest Council is now insisting she pay up the whole year's rates by December-- and not February like other ratepayers.

"Treating people like this is not the way Neil Gerrard said things would be done," said John Clark of the Ratepayers' Action Group.

"For some reasons Diane Sandle is being treated badly and we cannot understand why the council is insisting she pay her rate bill in full when she is not even in arrears.

"She has even been threatened with bailiffs."

*As we went to press Mrs Sandle phoned to say that the council had finally relented and given her till February as normal, to pay her rates bill.