Sir, - Rob Kennedy (D&S, Aug 29) appears to regard the terms "British, Christian, and Ethics" as an adequate definition of his beliefs. He cites the separation of Church and State in the USA and suggests: "it may explain why American children carry handguns and shoot each other". Evidently he doesn't know that a clear majority of Americans are regular churchgoers, compared with less than one in six in this country.

However, the devotion of Americans to their Christian faith is accompanied by their almost unanimous belief in their God-given right to carry a gun. In the most recent of the almost 20 years I lived in the USA, the number of deaths by gunfire was 25,400, and in the same year more than 800 bystanders were killed in street crossfire between rival gangs, or between criminals and police. Compare this with the public outrage in this country when just two teenage girls were victims of a shoot-out.

An individual's chances of being murdered, whether by gunfire or in any other way, are much greater in devoutly Christian America than in irreligious Britain.

I was a choirboy for about five years, and in that time I went through the Anglican rituals twice every Sunday. I still love the music, but by the time my voice had broken I could no longer believe in the old myths and superstitions.

Seventy years later, I believe that as members of the genus homo sapiens we must work together for the common good. Out of my pension I pay what I consider a reasonable income tax and donate roughly the same amount to charities - including a sum to the Salvation Army. Although they are Christians they have never burned heretics at the stake.

BILL FOSTER

The Holme,

Great Broughton.

Access denied

Sir, - Despite strong opposition from local people, our ward member and West Tanfield Parish Council, Hambleton District Council has approved the Lower Ure Conservation Trust's proposals for engineering scrapes, bunds and drains on the Nosterfield nature reserve.

My particular concern is the granting of permission to site bird boxes for tree sparrows along the section of path which leads from the main hide on moor lane to West Tanfield.

The LUCT has sought to implement the Highways Act - section 31(6) - in order to prevent the public from claiming a permanent right of way on this part of the path which should make it possible to walk round the reserve from Nosterfield to West Tanfield.

They have already said that it will remain closed for 10 years, until the hedge grows, despite the fact that it forms part of a planning agreement between the LUCT and Hambleton District Council. Local people suspect that the presence of bird boxes intended for a bird on the red species list for conservation will be used to deny public access indefinitely.

Because this part of the path remains closed, when my daughter and her young son walk to West Tanfield they are forced onto a stretch of very busy and dangerous road, with no footpath.

We are told that this flagship reserve is the blueprint for nature reserves on quarried land in North Yorkshire. What a bleak future this portrays on a landscape already decimated by quarrying.

S C ALLEN

Sycamore View,

Nosterfield.

A record?

Sir, - I have just made a return journey along the A684 between Bedale and Northallerton without encountering a single, temporary traffic light.

Is this a record?

IAN WHITTAKER

Sunnyside,

Healey.