WATER SUPPLIES: I am disgusted to hear that water companies are applying for permission to increase their bills above inflation.

Are the proposed price increases justified to meet environment legislation or are they a stealth tax to pay for hidden Government taxes that water companies must pay?

I was against the privatisation of water. It is one of our most valuable, natural assets.

The water companies imposed above inflation price increases in the 1990s to improve their infrastructure, so why do they need to do it again in such a short period of time?

Seventeen out of 22 wards in Sedgefield borough suffer from social deprivation. Many families have suffered from job losses and cannot afford to pay above inflation council tax or water company charges. - Ben Ord, Chairman, Spennymoor Liberal Democrats.

HOW many people in this country are aware that we are all now threatened with enforced medication of our water supplies with a highly toxic chemical?

The second reading of the Water Bill in the Commons is on September 8. This would compel water companies to accept requests for fluoridation made by unelected health authorities.

In the 1950s, when artificial fluoridation was first introduced with pilot schemes in four towns, a Ministry of Health pamphlet stated that people with kidney troubles should not have fluoridated water, also that boiling increases the concentration of fluoride.

On average, 48 per cent of children in fluoridated areas have dental fluorosis (disfiguring mottling of teeth).

However, many leading scientists now affirm that fluoride has much more serious effects: like lead, it is cumulative, half of that consumed remains in the body. This robs the body of calcium which can lead to brittle bones, kidney disease and damage to the immune system.

European countries have all rejected fluoridation because of the harmful effects.

From an ethical viewpoint, enforced fluoridation is essentially undemocratic; a denial of basic human rights.

It is urgent that all who oppose fluoridation of water supplies now take strong action. - FG Bishop, Darlington.

NORTHUMBRIAN Water threatens to up our water rates by a swingeing £80 per year. What a cheek!

How long is it since it indefinitely mothballed that grandiose white elephant, the Kielder-Tees link, after wasting astronomical amounts of our money on it?

Now, if indeed there is under-funding of its regional infrastructure, why doesn't it redirect some of the capital currently dormant in its huge overseas investments to where it is needed?

This is not about need at all though, is it? This is about sheer fat cat rapacity.

We always submit tamely to the demands of the utilities, but this time, just for once, let's make a stand and refuse to pay the increase if they impose it, en masse. - T Kelly, Crook.

ASYLUM SEEKERS

IT is difficult to take Dr Colin Clark seriously (Echo, Sept 2). Whilst claiming "a vested interest in seeing all sides of the story", he devotes himself to one side only, dismissing alternative views as ill-founded and prejudiced.

In a letter on the same page, Pete Winstanley offers a much more persuasive argument for asylum seekers, but he too gives no hint as to how many of them should join us.

Those who believe that many of Britain's social and economic problems stem in large measure from overpopulation, are not racists.

They look to Government for some evidence of policy on population and immigration, but find none.

Incredibly, Dr Clark concludes with a call for immigration controls to be abolished, a proposal so radical that one can only hope that The Northern Echo will invite a contributor of comparable status to present the other side of the debate. - Bob Jarratt, Caldwell, Richmond.

EUROPE

IT is regrettable that not everyone has time to read all the information contained in the draft EU constitution.

It reveals an alarming loss of control by nation states in favour of central government by the EU.

The extent of this loss is unbelievable. With the removal of the national veto (we have been promised continuously by British europhiles that this was sacrosanct) to be replaced by qualified majority voting in most areas, the member states will be left 'emasculated', as Peter Hain said.

The British public must become aware of, and take an interest in this loss of power by stealth and insist on a referendum, on an issue with profound implications for parliamentary democracy and the principle of self government. - J Heslop, Gainford.

THE International Monetary Fund records show major economies are on the up, apart from Japan and eurozone countries of Germany, France and Italy.

Britain and America are recovering from the global slump, while countries which have adopted the euro continue to suffer.

As Sweden prepares to vote on membership of the single currency, the big business and Government backed Yes vote is plummeting in popularity.

The Utopian dream of a full political union in Europe is now starting to sink.

A Utopian dream which sounds wonderful in the surreal world of academia was always doomed to failure. In the practical, pragmatic world of reality where most of the rest of us live, it just was never going to happen. - Neil Herron, Sunderland.