04/02/05

Every few years Middlesbrough police clear out red light areas, only for the prostitutes to move to another place.

Surely it is time that the Government laid down laws to sort out the problems of police time being wasted in one place and in another doing the opposite.

In every country in the world, men will pay for sex and there will be women who will provide it for money. In some countries, brothels are legal and licensed, and prostitutes are medically examined to prevent the spread of venereal diseases.

In other places, prostitution is ignored and no police time is wasted.

In Middlesbrough, where prostitutes are moved on by the police, pimps and drug dealers control them.

Many prostitutes are beaten up and forced to go on the streets. Some are murdered, often when the police 'clean up' the area and force the prostitutes to move to unsafe places.

Kerb-crawling car drivers being taken to court and named often causes the breakdown of marriages and sometimes blackmail.

The police have many other things to do. Prostitution should be administered by the NHS to stop of the spread of Aids.

At least in Liverpool there will be a scant number of used condoms, drug needles, etc for young children to find in their streets. - E Reynolds, Wheatley Hill.

ALTHOUGH I have never sought the services of a prostitute, I don't condemn the men who do. What I do object to is the hard line approach the police take towards the men who have visited the suspected brothels in Darlington: "Either come forward or be contacted at home or work" (Echo, Jan 26).

It is also regrettable that illegal immigrant Thai women are involved.

We all know brothels and prostitution are illegal and the police are enforcing the law. But isn't it better men use the services of prostitutes than turning their attention to rape and, worse still, to children.

I would suggest Darlington and Middlesbrough councils take a leaf out of Liverpool's book and vote in favour of a designated area. - George Sowerby, Bishop Auckland.

MATERNITY SERVICES

I WAS very distressed to read (Echo, Jan 26) that the future of the maternity services at the Friarage Hospital, Northallerton "are in grave doubt".

One of the reasons put forward for the closure of the Duchess of Kent Hospital at Catterick Garrison a few years ago was that it would make the Friarage viable.

One of the options at the time was for the Friarage to join up with the Memorial Hospital at Darlington, but joining the James Cook Hospital in Middlesbrough was supposed to be the best option. So now, with the review at the Friarage, people face having to travel to Middlesbrough for maternity services when it would be much easier to travel to Darlington.

Or it would have been better to have kept the Duchess of Kent open rather than plough £21m into the Friarage on facilities which are possibly not going to be used.

I realise that the new working practices for junior doctors appear to be part of the problem, but shouldn't this have been foreseen?

Pressure should be put on the NHS to stop any further asset-stripping and to ensure that all the local amenities are safeguarded. - M Holdstock, Catterick Garrison.

DARLINGTON

THE application to build a multi-storey car park and shops in Crown Street, Darlington, is to be welcomed. More town centre car parking is badly needed and the additional shops will help to save it from competition from out-of-town shopping.

However the artists' impression is completely misleading. The idyllic vision of two parked cars and a few pedestrians is far from realistic. If and when High Row is pedestrianised, the council proposes to use Crown Street as a bus station. A more realistic picture would be of a traffic jam with cars trying to negotiate parked buses to get to the new car park and the one above Wilkinson's.

This proposal requires a rethink of the scheme for Feethams. We do not need another supermarket but we do need a bus station. Being adjacent to the ring road, all buses could terminate there. This would facilitate a long term vision of park and ride schemes. A small environmentally friendly - and free?- bus touring the centre would complete the plan. - BK Fiske, Darlington Liberal Democrats.

YOU reported that a driver had been reimbursed by Darlington Council for damage caused to his car tyres by hedge-clippings (Echo, Jan 24).

During the week commencing January 17, the single track lane from Langton, near Ingleton, to Selaby, near Gainford, was covered with a carpet of thorns from a mechanical hedge cutter.

I believe this irresponsible practice resulted in damage to the sidewall of my front tyre.

Any driver who rode over these thorns, particularly during the first part of the week, will almost certainly have tyre damage which may not be immediately apparent as the tyres may deflate slowly over a period of time.

If you travelled this lane during the week, please phone me on (01388) 718214. - WH Mackenley, Bishop Auckland.

IRAQ

WOULD the brave people of Iraq be joyfully and defiantly going to the polls, in the face of the random killing, savage brutality and ruthless intimidation, if the American-led attack had not taken place?

Our generation paid a heavy cost to retain our freedom, and our parents did it twice. The people of Iraq seem to have opted to do the same.

There is still a long way to go but they have the strength to stand up in spite of the prophets of doom. Our forces have helped them and I am proud of them, whatever we may think of Bush and Blair. - George Appleby, Clifton, York.

RACISM

GIVEN that Nick Griffin, British National Party leader, is to face the courts relating to his comments about the Islamic religion, can we now expect that the police will arrest Alan Milburn regarding his overseeing of the allegedly anti-Semitic stance of the Labour Party election posters?

If not, the police are operating double standards. - B Anderson, Darlington.

IMMIGRATION

POVERTY in the world is increasing. Why? Many countries are increasing their populations indiscriminately when they can't feed the people they already have. Children are born to starve. Africa, through its own ignorance and irresponsibility, is spreading Aids without any thought of the consequence.

The population of the world has more than doubled in the last 50 years, the majority of it in the poorest countries.

The Northern Echo in its comment column rails on about inhumanity yet it seems to ignore much of the cause of inhumanity - ignorance.

If we are do not face this ignorance and stop kidding ourselves that filling this island of ours will solve the problem, then inhumanity on a scale beyond our wildest imagination will make the last war pale into insignificance. - John Young, Crook.