Sir, - A public meeting was held in Leyburn some years ago regarding Thornborough Hall.

The Richmondshire district councillors who attended were told in no uncertain terms by the Leyburn electorate that they did not want the hall to be sold off, but would prefer it remained in the hands of the council.

The meeting revealed Richmondshire District Council had done nothing to redress the financial shortfall of £20,000 required for the upkeep of the hall over the past years.

The meeting told these district councillors that some long-awaited maintenance should be carried out on the dangerous trees in Thornborough Woods, and the hole in the terrace above the "Georgian wall," which could easily swallow a Land Rover.

This hole was created by council workman doing "investigatory work" and needed to be filled and the "wall" which was ripped apart should be re-instated.

But here we are nearly five years after "investigatory work" and all that can be reported is that a bodged attempt to repair the "wall" failed and it has fallen down and the hole is now five times bigger than it was originally.

The only addition is an unsightly fence erected some two years ago along the wall because it is in such a dangerous condition and the mounds of rubble above and below the terrace are covered by long grass and tall weeds. This eyesore does nothing to enhance the stature of our town. This certainly would not be allowed to happen in Richmond.

Thornborough Hall and its grounds are in a conservation area and in these Leyburn has an environmental asset which many other authorities would be most grateful to own.

All that is required is imagination, an environmental grant from the many sources available and the political will to do something in Leyburn instead of Richmond.

The trees, which in arboricultural terms are weeds, need to be removed then the woods will provide the basis for an enchanting woodland walk.

Since the saga of the "wall" began we have acquired two new Lib Dem councillors to represent Leyburn on Richmondshire District Council.

I and some residents of the Thornborough Flats have tried to get them interested in prompting RDC to clear up this mess, unfortunately without success, this may be due to the fact neither actually lives in Leyburn and doesn't know where the "Georgian wall" and the woods are.

G R ORAM

Woodburn Drive,

Leyburn.

Well, they would

Sir, - "We wanted to emphasise the good things under a Labour government' says their agent in Richmond (D&S, June 15) excusing their failure to mention foot-and-mouth in their election literature. Well they would, wouldn't they.

Even had foot-and-mouth been discussed, you can be sure that no major party would have tackled the big issue. It was the dogmatic obsession with global trade that created both the conditions for it to spread and the uncompromising, but avoidable, slaughter policy. Did anyone, apart from the Greens, dare mention that?

I shouldn't be too hard though on the local party workers. This was an election orchestrated and fought from London, with no room for local manoeuvre. To their credit, Richmond Labour party did dare to hold a meeting earlier this year about the Bush plan to use Fylingdales to give the US military domination of the world from space. After that, silence. nuclear missile deployment, like FMD, was an electoral no-go area.

Writing on behalf of the Green Party, I asked other parties to respond in these columns on both FMD and NMD. The result was AMD - avoid meaningful debate!

The stifling of any local debate took other forms too. In Stockton we found we were barred from using the public media to tell voters of our three meetings.

BBC local radio flatly refused to mention them in their what's on spot. Likewise, our manifesto could not be displayed in libraries, for fear of offending some over-sensitive eye in the local political establishment. Political patronage now overrides public service.

Tony Blair is said to want more people to vote. He failed, and no wonder. The party programmes were digested into crude billboard slogans, while 100,000 young people received the junk text message "x labour if urup4it".

The iniquitous first-past-the-post electoral system (that led his candidate in Vale of York to invite Liberal Democrats to vote for a party that they didn't support) is as firmly in place as ever.

A healthy democracy requires an informed electorate. The main party machines treated voters like idiots. No wonder so many chose to stay away from the polls.

PETER GOODWIN

Church Howle Crescent,

Marske-by-Sea.