PROSTITUTION

IT IS doubtful if even Gilbert and Sullivan would have considered a bizarre unbelievable opera regaling the laws of prostitution. Any prostitute can be arrested and taken to the law courts and fined. But, as her main source of income is earned on the streets, she will then spend more time raising the money to pay the fine.

How much police and courts' time used in the event is anyone's guess, the result is that the opposite effect will take place. Of course, most prostitutes are aware of the problems they cause and if they try to alleviate them and work from a building the police will raid it as it is used by prostitutes as a brothel. So the courts will find them guilty of breaking the law and the outcome will be that they will go on to the streets.

In towns and cities in this country where there is only a small red light area police know of buildings used by prostitutes and tend to ignore them. At least it keeps the streets cleaner and the prostitutes are much safer working inside.

Streetwise prostitutes know they cannot rely on the police for protection and therefore they look to pimps who bring in many other aspects, such as drug dealing.

If brothels were licensed it would stop the spread of Aids and other diseases as the prostitutes would be medically examined. It would save the health service considerable sums and unsuspecting wives would be safer from the disease spread too. Instead of costing the taxpayer money in a futile endeavour to clean up the red light areas, the prostitutes would pay income tax on their earnings.

For decades now on Teesside the red light districts have been cleaned up again and again and, no doubt in the future, they will be cleaned up again and again. - E Reynolds, Wheatley Hill.

DOG DIRT

WITH regard to the letter about dog dirt (Has, Oct 24), RP Bainbridge of Crook should condemn all dog owners as being irresponsible. Come to Croxdale, I have not only to dodge dog dirt but also masses of grass cuttings left by the council to blow away, only it doesn't, and heaps of the droppings from horses, all on the footpaths where I try to walk with my grandchildren.

I have a dog and use plastic bags to clean up after her, as do a number of my neighbours walking their dogs.

Today I found it necessary to take a shovel and clear the footpath after irresponsible horse owners. Why not a licence for horses? - M Williamson, Croxdale.

NORTHUMBRIAN WATER

MANY people over the last few weeks will have received from Northumbrian Water a pamphlet and a letter signed by AJ Harding, managing director, promising instant attention to burst pipes, blocked drains, etc.

This is a load of rubbish. I have, on five separate occasions, had raw sewage flow under my bungalow and through the retaining wall of my front garden between December 1997 and October 2000. Despite calling the water board out on each occasion, nothing has been done to rectify the fault. - C Campbell, Esh Winning.

RAILWAYS

I WONDER if the Tories feel any responsibility for the state of the railways? They were warned privatisation would be a disaster.

They have never liked public-owned railways and systematically destroyed them. They sold off their road services, then their ships, and hotels, and so a national integrated transport system was reduced to the state of today, unable to run trains safely.

There used to be a time when there were alternative routes to allow for engineering works, but these were closed down as uneconomic. Railwaymen built trucks, coaches, engines, for other railwaymen to drive on track laid and maintained by other railwaymen. There were national standards ensuring safe practice throughout the rail network.

Now there is a hotch-potch of companies, all looking for profit and expecting public money to bale them out.

I think the Government should act in a business like way. For every pound given to these private companies the Government should receive a share in their ownership, and then use its influence in the boardrooms for the good of the travelling public. - N Crockit, Darlington.

THE current spate of c1osures leads one to ask why we have a Health and Safety Executive whose job should have been to see that these spots now closed or restricted (but which had obviously been previously noted) were not dealt with sooner.

My other question is: could all these failures have had anything to do with the fact that Railtrack, to save money, stopped purchasing in this country? - ML Willers, Darlington.

HISTORY

THOSE who call for schools to teach more names of British kings and queens might reflect first on Canute.

Facing a tide of instantly forgotten sound-bites, many young people do not know how the vote was won and what taxes pay for, let alone the date of Waterloo.

We should all, young and old, be learning about global developments and seeking a long-term view: asking why 200 individuals own more than 41 per cent of the world's people and how the world's health could be improved with less than Europe spends on ice-cream and petfood.

And why basic civic education (dare to call it "political"?) is so absent from our national - and nationalistic - curriculum. - John Nicholson, Chief Executive, UK Public Health Association, Manchester.