18/02/05

If advice, information, consultation and financial management has to go through so many tiers to get from top to bottom and back up again, one has to wonder how many bureaucrats are involved in each operation before grass roots society benefits - if it ever does.

It is surely possible to get the job done without such an army of people, at a much lower cost, while taking account of the needs of those who are supposed really to benefit - those at the bottom of the pile.

It's time for drastic streamlining and ditching the myth that all this regional bureaucracy is essential to achieve efficient local government and development. As an individual, I feel as remote from the top of this hyped up pile as I am from Mars. - RK Bradley, Darlington.

THANKS to Chris Lloyd for his balanced article on the future of North-East government.

From his organisation chart, it is obvious that the North-East assembly could be removed without breaking any of the other links.

We are paying for an extra layer of unnecessary bureaucracy - the very thing we overwhelmingly voted against.

Durham's elected council leaders seem suddenly to have become aware that they are being dictated to by an organisation they cannot influence.

The councils have a mandate from the people to do all in their power to remove an undemocratic wasteful assembly. Their loyalty is not to central government but to the people they represent.

With this in mind I would urge them to follow the example of other regions in the country and to reduce, or preferably withdraw, funding from an un-elected talking shop. - B Gobin Spennymoor.

IN REPLY to Tory Jim Tague (HAS, Feb 10), the North-East Assembly does not get £860,000 council taxpayers' money, I do not have a "canny little number" on it (I am unpaid) and I have never "demonised" those who voted no in the referendum.

I am proposing that, in future, no council money at all should go to the assembly.

Mr Tague says nothing about Tory members of the assembly, nor about the many Tories who sit on the region's 100-plus government-appointed quangos.

The Tories want to replace police authorities with single individuals who, once elected, will be in sole charge of our police forces. This will take yet more power away from local councils.

Labour is no better, abolishing regional committees of the Rail Passengers' Council.

Regional development agency One NorthEast (ONE) is a huge quango which spends millions of public money in the region. It is accountable to the North-East Assembly, which includes business people, trades unions, churches and voluntary organisations, as well as local council representatives. The assembly is the only body which represents the whole of the North-East. Abolishing it would kill our only regional voice and take powers away from local councils, ending their right to call ONE to account.

Unelected, unaccountable quangos, all funded by public money, have mushroomed under Tories and Labour. We need a sensible, informed discussion about how to rationalise this expensive, wasteful and undemocratic system and bring it under local democratic control. - Coun Chris Foote-Wood, Bishop Auckland Liberal Democrats.

WALKING

AN anonymous gift of £38,000 has saved footpaths in Lakeland which were due to be closed because they were only walked by white, middle-class, middle-aged people (Echo, Feb 8).

While being heartened by the actions of the donor, I find discrimination distasteful in any shape. If similar paths were to be closed because they were only being used by black, working-class teenagers there would be a nationwide outcry. Surely middle-aged, white, middle-class people are entitled to the same protection against prejudice?

My claim to be middle aged is long gone, but as a white, middle-class walker, I resent not being worthy of keeping paths open. - Charles Hocking, Durham.

DELIVERY PROBLEMS

IN RESPONSE to Leah Creeh of Dunstable (HAS, Feb 10), I too have had a bad experience with Darlington delivery office.

I posted some photographs on December 10 for delivery 15 miles away at Hurworth. I may have been 7p short of the correct postage.

I telephoned the delivery office at least six times over the next two or three weeks. Despite the promises of the answering machine, I am still awaiting a reply.

Customer services wondered what it had got to do with them, so in desperation I sent a letter recorded delivery to the manager at Darlington on January 27 expecting an immediate response.

On February 8, I received a letter from customer services at Glasgow saying sorry and enclosing 12 stamps. Two days later, I got a note telling me to collect an underpaid letter from Newton Aycliffe delivery department.

This was my original letter which had been lying around, opened, for two months.

Nobody appears to be answerable. Good luck Ms Creeh. I hope your package turns up. - Roland Stockdale, Newton Aycliffe.

ST JOHN'S CHAPEL

I AM appalled at the attitude of Dere Street director, Chris Hogan, whose company wants to build 51 homes in the Upper Weardale village of St John's Chapel (Echo, Feb 12).

He thinks the development design is fine and he is not prepared to make changes. His arrogance obviously blinds him to that fact that if Wear Valley Council planners instruct his company to make amendments to comply with the regulations, he will have by law to do so.

Government guidelines that high density housing is required on relevant sites are just that, guidelines, and must be tempered with regard to specific areas. This is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and, as such, a development of this size and type is totally unacceptable.

I also take issue with his comment that this is the first development in Weardale for a number of years.

What about his own company's new developments in Wolsingham and Stanhope? There are also new houses in Westgate and we already have a small, tasteful group of new houses in St John's Chapel.

Feeling is running very high in this village about this proposed site and Mr Hogan's attitude and comments have done nothing to assist his cause. - Heather Iddon, St John's Chapel.

DARLINGTON

I AM in agreement with R Elliott's views on the shops in Darlington (HAS, Feb 14).

I was born there and lived in the town until I began teaching in Leeds. Darlington was a pleasant little market town in those days.

Now, whenever I visit my daughter there, I am saddened to see what a down-at-heel place it has become.

Unfortunately, replacing good quality shops with cheap counterparts appears to be the norm these days. We have the same problem in Scarborough and have to travel to York or Hull to shop. - J Chambers, Scarborough.