COUNCIL ADDRESS

RE Councillor Valerie Halton's letter about a referendum not being held over dropping Yorkshire from the postal address of Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council (HAS, Page 10, Sept 13).

Did the Tory, Liberal Democrat mixture of Independent coalition councillors have a referendum to put Yorkshire on the address? No, they did not. Did they ask the people of Redcar and Cleveland if they wanted to spend £10,000 on Yorkshire Day? Once again, no they did not.

One of factors in using only Redcar and Cleveland in our borough name was to do it at no extra cost. Obviously there is a cost to a borough-wide referendum.

Another factor was that very high ranking business people had said that including the county name and not having Redcar and Cleveland as the main name was sending the wrong messages to the rest of the Tees Valley.

Finally, democracy comes around every four years in local government. It will be the people of Redcar and Cleveland who will decide who they trust to promote our borough. - Councillor George Dunning, Labour Leader, Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council.