Sir, - For the second time in a month, you have carried an article which might cause your readers to believe that some vast income generated by grouse shooting pays for the conservation and regeneration of the country's heather moorland. This is a cynical deception.

Amongst many other tax-funded grants available, the Countryside Stewardship Scheme provides substantial grants for heather conservation and regeneration, bracken control, tree planting and maintenance. There are many other grant eligible activities of direct benefit to moorland owners.

According to a recent claim by the Moorland Association, its members are currently signed up for the regeneration of 75,000 acres of heather. This item alone will cost the tax-payer between £12.1m and £28.7m. The total grants available for this year under the Scheme will amount to more than £120m of taxpayers' money, much of which will benefit moor owners and other estate owners.

In addition to this scheme, local moorland owners are currently benefiting from the Northern Uplands Moorland Regeneration Project which cost the taxpayer at least £2.5m, allegedly to make grouse shooting economically sustainable by paying for game keeping equipment, vehicles, shooting hut refurbishment, access roads, grouse butt construction, etc.

When, in 1995, landowner organisations made a bid for this type of EU funding, they were obliged to reveal that in Scotland, for example, a total expenditure of £13.7m on grouse shooting produced income of only £3million, that is losses of nearly 80pc and revealing grouse shooting as a very weak factor even in the rural economy.

It is incredible that some of the richest people in this country are able to have their properties and hobbies subsidised unwittingly by the rest of us, and yet their barefaced claims to be philanthropic benefactors of the countryside are published by your paper without comment.

P D JOHNSON

North View,

Barningham,

Richmond.

So-called security

Sir, - With reference to the report by Fay Nayman concerning Heighington, (D&S, May 25), may I offer some, hopefully, pertinent comments.

Firstly, I agree entirely with the police assessment that Heighington is a "low crime area with few incidents of disorder".

South West Durham remains a tranquil area, and Heighington in particular remains virtually crime free.

Such crimes as there are are of an opportunist nature by outsiders passing through and are rare (it is by no means unusual to have no reported incidents in a month).

That said, this surely illustrates the difference between crime and the perception of crime. The general over-reaction to this situation by a sizeable minority of people is seen in the proliferation of alarm systems, (over 99pc of all alarm calls are "false", and serve merely to annoy more sensible people).

The only growth industry in the UK is the so-called security industry, pandering to the unrealistic fears of gullible people.

The other aspect of all this, of course, is the aesthetic one. Houses, including some of the lovely old buildings around the green, are defaced with these hideous bell-boxes. Goodness knows what visitors to the village think when they see them.

Hopefully, a sense of proportion may prevail and people will begin to see through the advertisements of ex-chief constable John Stalker and his "endorsements" and adopt a more realistic attitude to the subject.

J T KING

Snackgate Lane,

Heighington