GHOST SHIPS: WHATEVER is said or written about the Ghost Ships, the inescapable fact is that they are here and a decision must be made on their future.

If they are as hazardous as is claimed then this decision should be made as soon as possible, not allowing the matter to simmer in the courts as an argument on the meaning of an adjective in the planning application.

If Able can dismantle these ships in a safe manner, may I suggest it be allowed to do so, packing the hazardous materials in suitable containers for return to the US, where there is much more space than we in Britain have for the creation of licenced sites for the disposal of these materials. - JW Davison, Ferryhill.

LUNAR TRAVEL

THE only thing that would convince me that a permanent colony on the moon was not to be a waste of vast amounts of cash, would be if George W Bush were to be its first permanent inhabitant.

I'm sure that the necessary funds could be raised in no time at all if this were to be the case. (Would he need a moon visa?). - Phil Robinson, Darlington.

AIR TRAVEL

THROUGHOUT most of my life I have associated having fingerprints taken with the suspicion that someone has committed a crime.

My main objection to having an identity card is that there would be a chip on it containing my fingerprint impression.

I now find that if I want to travel to the US I will have to have my fingerprint taken before boarding the aircraft. In addition there will be air marshals on the plane. Has al Qaida struck terror into their hearts already?

My remedy of course is not to travel to the US. Even when the country was afflicted with communist phobia it did not go as far.

To get a visa you had to declare that you were not a communist and that you never had been a communist.

I contrast it with going to the Soviet Union, which did not stamp your passport, and asked no questions about your political affiliations. Its only requirement when I was there was not to address anyone as comrade in Russian unless we were communists ourselves.

I do support sensible precautions and the vigilance we had when the IRA were active. I accepted with good grace and slight inconvenience the confiscation of my nail scissors in Cyprus. My point is that when security precautions go into overdrive it will end with all travel and commerce coming to a standstill.

Have the people over there any sense of proportion and if Tony Blair really is their friend should he tell them to try and be a bit cool? - Geoffrey Bulmer, Billingham.

SMOKING

THE dawn of every new year heralds the call for smokers to give up their anti-social and filthy habit. The media is full of smokers bleating about their annual struggle to reject a habit that robs them of their health and thousands of pounds.

With the amount of information available nowadays, for a person to want to begin smoking must cast serious doubts upon their mental makeup.

As a nine-year-old in 1953, I spent six weeks in hospital in a men's medical ward and have memories of men coughing their lungs up and of enamel mugs full of sputum streaked with blood. If 'informed' people of today still want to smoke, no amount of propaganda will make any difference. What is the cure for stupidity? - D Brearley, Middlesbrough.

REGIONAL GOVERNMENT

THE Government has said that, in the event of a 'Yes' vote in the referendum, it will take away one tier of local government where two currently exist, as in North Yorkshire where we have a county council as well as more local district councils.

Harrogate Borough Council has voted against the formation of a Regional Assembly, which will remove the 'local' in local government.

But the Boundary Committee is currently consulting on proposals for how local government would look in the light of a 'Yes' vote and we are urging all residents to have their say. The Boundary Committee needs to hear people's comments now before they make their final proposals to the Government, which will then decide which options are to appear on the ballot paper alongside the vote on regional government.

North Yorkshire County Council is proposing that it should become one large single-tier local authority based on its current boundaries.

But under the banner Let's Keep it Local - Better by Miles - the district councils in North Yorkshire believe that a three-way split for the county would be the best way forward.

It will create authorities capable of delivering services - but which are also local and identify with community needs. One large single council for the whole of North Yorkshire would be simply too big to do that. To have one council, responsible for all services across an area of over 3,000 square miles is unwise: it would be simply too big to be practical.

North Yorkshire County Council (as county council and police authority) currently gets 85p in every pound of local council tax collected. However, most of the local services are provided by district councils and, in fact, 86 per cent of contact with local government by residents in North Yorkshire is with the district councils. - Councillor Mike Gardner, Leader of Harrogate Borough Council.

TRAFFIC LAWS

YOUR Comment (Echo, Jan 6) seems to contradict itself.

It asserts that police officers are well paid and highly trained and that their time should be better spent on serious crime, rather than issuing tickets to drivers. Then it suggests that the installation of cameras and its expense would be better spent on more beat officers.

The police are well paid - too well paid in my opinion - and the expense to the citizen is enormous, so it would suggest, that a more efficient means of using the 'police' is long overdue.

When you look at what is happening on our roads and the increase in crime in general, it will take more than simplistic assertion or moaning motorists to solve what is becoming a nightmare.

We cannot go on forever pampering the motorist, nor can we go on forever clogging up our own cities. There has to be a change of attitude, a far better public transport infrastructure and whether people like it or not, they should be made to use it. - John Young, Crook.