TOWN CENTRE

IN your article, "Big money plans to regenerate town centre", Councillor Tommy Taylor, the Liberal Democrat leader of Wear Valley District Council, says the scheme will make Bishop Auckland "a town for the 21st Century". Interesting.

The town was doomed by the council in the Seventies, when Newgate Street was pedestrianised. What had been a thriving, lively place to shop died virtually overnight.

Now, Bishop's shops sell mainly cheap rubbish. What the town desperately needs is someone with real vision, not this incessant obsession of a tenuous link with Stan Laurel.

I really doubt whether the council can deliver to the townspeople what they deserve.

Let's hope the appointment of a new project manager brings someone to the town with real imagination. They also need the guts to take on a council which is well past its sell-by date. - Sean Bowron, Shildon.

CALL CENTRES

IN an ever-changing world, business has to adapt quickly to survive in a global market. There is no doubt that modern computers are necessary.

I worked in sales admin/marketing using the manual system, and was involved in the change over to computerised systems.

The speed of processing orders which took seven to ten days suddenly could, in emergencies, be pushed through in hours.

Telephone systems have been updated and, alas, we have the "automated telephone" which confuses the elderly and can cost users for a call before even speaking to a person. Yes, I have complained about this to BT and local councils.

We, the British people, want to speak to a human being and for the Government to seek a return home for call centres. That is what the public wants - much-needed jobs, here in the North-East, where many people have to travel miles to work, which is costly, expensive and bad for the environment. - Councillor Ben Ord, Spennymoor.