03/01/05

I am not aware of any local Weardale councillor who supports the vast amounts of public money being invested in the railway.

I speak as the county councillor for Weardale, district councillor for St John's Chapel and parish councillor for Rookhope.

However, I would support the principle of running a railway service and employing local people.

Had the vast amounts invested by the funders to date been invested in other local businesses, then they would flourish. All we are now left with is uncertainty for the employees and the contractors who are owed substantial amounts of money. - County Councillor John Shuttleworth, Durham County Council.

HUNTING

MS Embling (HAS, Dec 28) should take the trouble to find out more about the history, and nature, of hounds.

I have "walked" hound puppies for the last 28 years, and enjoyed following their progress in the hunting field. Like all puppies, they are absolutely charming and enjoy the freedom of farm and country life for about six months.

I have found that they do not behave in the same way as other working dogs, or domestic pets, because for the last 250 years they have been specifically bred to hunt a particular quarry; collies are bred to herd sheep, labradors to pick up game etc.

When they get to seven or eight months old, their hunting instinct kicks in, and off they go wherever their noses take them, which can cause problems to neighbours.

At this stage they go back into kennels where they can be kept under proper control.

To take older hounds out of the pack situation and try to re-train and re-home them would, in my opinion, be very traumatic for the animal, and impossible to achieve safely.

They would need plenty of work (not exercise) to keep them occupied, and would be extremely destructive when bored.

People have tried to "retire" old hounds that they have walked, but when autumn comes the only thing they want to do is hunt. - Margaret Hedley, Crook.

LOCAL DEMOCRACY

PRAISE indeed for Ken Manton (HAS, Dec 28) from Sue Wild for having introduced flexi-time for county council employees.

Coun Manton has obviously influenced many positive initiatives in County Durham as well as pursuing his own agenda with some unwanted, undemocratic decisions, eg the 'obelisk' on the A689.

One of Coun Manton's primary roles as an elected county councillor is to represent the views, wishes and best interests of the community he serves.

Many people in Sedgefield have found Coun Manton's performance in this area to be lacking.

Members of Sedgefield Labour Party branch should be congratulated in recognising and trying to address issues of their selected representatives who are not fulfilling their responsibilities to both their party and local residents.

Let us not confuse gender representation issues with those of true democratic representation.

Coun Manton obviously does not have the skills to both lead Durham County Council and represent the best interests of the community he is supposed to serve. - Julia Bowles, Sedgefield.

FISHING

SOME environmentalists are now claiming that cod, once a staple of the British diet, could be fished close to extinction, and that a deal keeping North Sea fishing grounds open to trawlers was "scandalous".

What is in actual fact scandalous is the little known fact that the decisions on quotas which are important to the future of North Sea fishing will be taken in closed committee rooms by bureaucrats (the EU Commission) and not by ministers of member states (the EU Council).

A Government White Paper in May 2002 proposed "reform" of the Common Fisheries Policy which introduced a system of control called "multi-annual management plans".

The fisheries conference in Brussels two weeks ago confirmed that: "With this new agreement, more fish will be caught during 2005 than originally planned but the quota will start decreasing during the coming years."

The plan being to "rebuild stocks without economically crippling the fleets concerned". The problem being that this plan does not allow for the view of the fishermen or, for that matter, the environmentalists.

Today the North Sea fishermen are relatively happy. Next year both environmentalists and fishermen are going to be screaming together. - Peter Troy, Sedgefield.

EUROPE

DAVE Pascoe of UKIP (HAS, Dec 29) thinks that admitting Turkey to the EU would increase the threat from terrorism. I would suggest the opposite.

For all its flaws, the EU is an organisation whose members are united by certain shared values relating to human rights, pluralism and democracy, and these values are not incompatible with Islam.

There is a great deal of hostility between the West and the Arab/Islamic world, much of it based on misunderstanding and unfounded suspicion. What better way is there to end this hostility and promote democracy and human rights in Muslim countries than to invite them to join a coalition of secular democracies?

This would certainly stand a better chance of success than the disastrous Bush/Blair doctrine, which promises to bring peace by making war, to impose democracy, freedom and justice by suspending the fundamental principles of human rights, and to end violence by the use of overwhelming lethal force. - Pete Winstanley, Durham.

SMOKING

THERE has never been any comparison made between smoking and exhaust fumes from cars (HAS, Dec 22).

The point that correspondents have been trying to make is that one poison in the atmosphere is as bad as any other and it seems very hypocritical to home onto the smoking poison and not others just because it suits them.

In the days prior to the internal combustion engine when nearly every one smoked and homes and streets were filled with smoke, the incidents of cancer were far lower per head of population than they are today.

If proof is needed of how deadly car fumes are, an example would be that if someone wishes to end it all they don't sit in the car and smoke themselves to death. A much quicker way is to stick the exhaust in through the window. - Jim Rishworth, Darlington.