IT all began in 1966 when Richard Crossman, the Minister of Housing and Local Government in Harold Wilson's Labour Cabinet set up a commission under the chairmanship of Sir John Maud, (later Lord Redcliffe-Maud) to review local government functions and boundaries.

The Redcliffe-Maud Commission reported in 1969 but its findings did not meet with universal approval and it was not until the Conservatives won the 1970 General Election that action was taken.

The Conservatives were not in favour of the wholesale revolution proposed by the Redcliffe-Maud commission (which proposed distilling 1,000 existing local authorities into 61 unitary authorities), preferring a more evolutionary approach to change.

This approach found expression in the 1972 Local Government Act which proposed the introduction of two-tier metropolitan-style local government in six areas including West Yorkshire, as a county authority.

The Act, which came into force in 1974, meant that the Ilkley Urban District Council, which had existed since 1895 as a successor to the Ilkley Local Board, was doomed. Its functions and authority would be taken over by the fledgling City of Bradford Metropolitan Council.

One of the local members of the new Council was Dale Smith, who is still a Conservative District Councillor for Rombalds Ward.

He explained at a crowded meeting at The Grove School, Ilkley, in 1974 that Ilkley would make a massive leap from an area with 7,000 rate payers to part of a much larger authority with 200,000 rate payers.

Local Government was becoming big business with a tendency to concentrate on the larger problems and forget about the little people. The new authority had a population of 462,000 and 22,000 employees.

By now the Department of the Environment had given Ilkley permission to form its own Parish Council, which would concentrate on the concerns of local people.

At the meeting, Coun Smith said: "In Ilkley and Addingham you are fortunate to have parish councils which can act as a sounding board for local opinion, you have six metropolitan district councillors and one county councillor and innumerable local organisations to tell us the services we are providing are not up to the standard expected"

He added: "The resources of the new authority are far greater than the existing small districts. We are determined to utilise those resources wisely for the public of the district."

However, as the residents of Ilkley and Addingham were soon to find out, there was to be an early shock when their rates bill arrived.

In 1974 there was a proposed rate increase of 50 per cent for Ilkley householders and 79 per cent for Addingham residents.

But at an open open meeting again at the Grove School, Ilkley, the former treasurer of the Ilkley Urban District Council Mr G Hodges, blamed the increase on a loan debt of £135 million inherited by Bradford Council and said that there would have been a steep rate rise without local government reorganisation.

He said: "The new Bradford Council is having to start from scratch with no resources but it is not because of re-organisation that the rates were having to go up."

But many people were not convinced and expected that the relatively affluent area of Ilkley would end up subsidising the major city of Bradford with all its problems of poverty, crime and deprivation. Quite a few still believe that to be the case.

The Government of Margaret Thatcher in 1986 abolished the Metropolitan County Authority of West Yorkshire, leaving Bradford in sole charge of local government in Wharfedale.

The parish councils of Addingham and Ilkley have continued to represent the people as the first tier of local government.

But the relationship between parish councils and Bradford has not always been easy. The increasing pressure on local government finance and Ilkley Parish Council's inability to impose effective influence at City Hall has generated many difficulties.

Public buildings and services in Ilkley have deteriorated, the parish council has remained unable to pull open the City Hall purse strings, and Bradford Council has gained a local reputation for turning its back on the town it regards, not as the 'Jewel in the Crown' of the district at it states but as white, middle class, well-heeled and whinging.

Things may have carried on in the same vein indefinitely had not the election of Tony Blair's New Labour Government changed things. 'Devolution' became the buzz word and parish council were told they would have to adopt more local responsibility or wither away to nothing.

Ilkley Parish Council grabbed the bull by the horns and set up a working group to produce ideas on how to modernise Ilkley Parish Council. The main idea it came up with was to raise a precept on the town's population to help pay for purely local projects such as improving litter collection and toilets.

It is seen as the answer to Bradford's constant rejoinder of 'no cash' every time improvements to services in the area are suggested.

This year Band A households will gave to pay an extra £5 at year, £9 if they live in Band E and £12 if they live in Band G.

The precept is not universally popular and some people see it as double rating. But the amount of public consultation carried out before it was imposed has given the parish council the green light to go ahead.

Already there have been problems, such as Bradford electoral unit giving the parish council the wrong figure from which to make their calculations, leading to a shortfall of around £15,000 in the total for this year, according to the parish council.

But parish council chairman Michael Gibbons remains convinced that the idea to raise a precept remains a popular one.

He said: "I believe the overall precept for Ilkley forms less than one per cent of the overall local tax and amounts to a very few pence per week for the majority of rate payers.

"I do not believe this is excessive and I think it is worth the support it appears to be receiving. We will be enhancing some of the services which Bradford provides."

Already the leader of Bradford Council's Labour Group, Ian Greenwood, has called for the agreement by which Bradford Council agreed to provide the £25,000-a-year administration fees for the parish council to be renegotiated with a view to the funding being withdrawn, because of the decision to raise a precept.

Such a move would further deplete the total fund, making it almost not worth the bother of raising the extra money in the first place.

Coun Greenwood's ill-timed suggestion is not one which will go towards dispelling the suspicion that Bradford Labour politicians hold Ilkley and its people in scant regard, despite the fact that the town's Labour MP Ann Cryer has found it easy to make herself a popular Parliamentary representative in a staunchly Conservative town.

But whichever political group is in charge at City Hall, two depressing developments seem set to continue inexorably. Council taxes will rise at rates above inflation and services will deteriorate or (as in the case of education and housing) be thrown overboard altogether.

What little money Ilkley gets from City Hall, in relation to the tax paid to it, will have to stretch further and further.

The new precept may delay us reaching breaking point for some time but those who see it as a panacea for Ilkley's municipal ills may yet have cause to rue their confidence.

Whether the precept will turn out to be a good idea or not, only time will tell. In a few short years we may all be wondering - as we look around at a rejuvenated and immaculately cared for Ilkley - why it was not implemented years ago.

On the other hand it may just get swallowed up in the black hole of local government finance, leaving us all a little poorer and with hardly anything tangible to show for it.

Whatever the future brings, we can be certain of just one thing. The precept may turn out to be a great idea or an expensive blunder, but you can bet your next year's wages that now it has been set, it will never be repealed.