Hear All Sides

However, at the same time, council tax payers would like to be reassured how the overspend on the Millennium Project, said to be £1m to £2m, is to be financed.

An assurance that the local authority pension fund is not being eroded to meet this liability would especially be appreciated. - W Green, Durham.

GERRY Steinberg has demanded an investigation into the financial crisis surrounding a £14m theatre, to discover the fate of hundreds of thousands of pounds. As a taxpayer, I would like to know where has the money gone?

He says the council was right in the first place in employing experts for the Gala Theatre because it hadn't the sort of experience in running this sort of venture. But how did the city council know it was employing experts when, within four months, the venture collapsed with debts of almost £700,000?

Some experts, and surely the city council, should have looked in great detail into the background of this company.

The creditors will not even get one penny back. The council taxpayers are out of pocket to the tune of £209,000.

Yes, there should be an investigation and it should be open to the public if they want to attend, and not behind closed doors. It is in the interest of the taxpayer.

According to the booklet, the Durham City Performance Plan 2002: "The City Council belongs to you - the public. You help to finance it. You are, in effect, shareholders. Therefore, the council needs to consider your views."

If the council wants my view, it is that whoever is responsible should resign. - DT Murray, Coxhoe, Durham.

CLEARLY, in the rush to open the Gala Theatre so as not to lose external funding, some parts of the project were not given the attention they required.

The management of the theatre was really a high profile decision that seems to have been 'nodded through' without stringent financial checks being carried out prior to the appointment being made.

Surely the council members should have been concerned when they were requested to provide The Entertainment Team (Durham) Ltd with a £75,000 interest-free loan within weeks of opening. It must have been clear then that this company did not have the necessary financial backing from day one.

Gerry Steinberg says that the £209,000 owed to Durham City Counci1 will come from council resources. I believe this is a nice way of saying the ratepayers, as ultimately all the council's cash resources come from the ratepayer.

I think everyone in Durham is aware that the council does not have the expertise to manage the Gala Theatre long term. One would hope that urgent steps are being taken to find a competent body to take over the running of the Gala Theatre before the ratepayers are penalised further by excessive rate increases in coming years.

One hopes the Gala Theatre is not destined to become "The Durham Dome". - R Waite, Spennymoor.

MY first impressions of Durham Gala Theatre area are - a massive square, boring off-white buildings. This could be made more welcoming by partly colouring the exterior wall opposite the library a pastel peach and a sculpture or two (dare I say it, one of mine, even?).

And no theatre should commence with a deficit. They need an initial subsidy. - F Atkinson, Shincliffe.

COUNCIL EXPENSES

THE people of Middlesbrough should be congratulated on electing Ray Mallon as their mayor as it would appear, within the first weeks of office, he is listening and acting upon their wishes.

Leading by example, looking at all areas of spending in order to maximise front line services, scrutinising councillors' expenses (and perks), while not claiming his own. What a refreshing change. - Brian Collins, Spennymoor.

READING the letter (HAS, June 13) regarding Durham County councillors receiving computers, I have to say I totally agree with A Elliott and what he had to say.

I think the council tax which we pay could have been put to a better use.

When you have a look round at the conditions of our roads and pathways, and how they have been neglected over the past years, I think it is criminal to spend £160,000 a year to run computers, and what makes it worse is that we have just had an increase in our council tax of 14 per cent.

I agree that we should have a rate strike, but that would never happen. So, in the meantime, we go on paying our taxes so they can waste more of our money. - H Dalby, Quarrington Hill.

HONOURS SYSTEM

WERE I ever offered a knighthood, I would tell them what they could do with it.

Why? Because there is no way I would want to be associated with at least one well-known recipient.

Aren't such people over-privileged as it is, without them being set before the rest of us as worthy role models?

The individual I especially have in mind - a role model?

The award of a knighthood to such as him confirms - what we already know - that the establishment in this country is indeed hell bent on undermining traditional family values.

And they matter infinitely more than obscene wealth, fake glamour and exotic lifestyles. - Tony Kelly, Crook.

l Michael Heppell Limited: in yesterday's article we carried an incorrect telephone number. The correct number for Michael Heppell Limited is (01434) 688555. We apologise for the error