May 20, 2006

Out of frustration I have decided to stop writing to you and the council.

Early on, I asked the Director of Development and Environment under what authority the council was going to raise the level of High Row.

When he was unable or unwilling to quote any statutory authority, I, having looked at the Highways Act 1980, told him!

Tell him that the Department of Transport seems to support my view and he says that it is a question of (his) "interpretation".

The council, once having made a decision, expects the officers to obey without question and so no officer dares say anything which might scupper the council's plans and its links with the developers.

The council, as reported, now proposes to come to an arrangement with Cummins relating to "public open space".

I predict no notice will be given, the public will not have a right to object, council officers will not say a word and public open space will be lost.

John Antill, Darlington.

TORIES

IN the recent council elections, Labour gained seats in Hartlepool while South Tyneside, Gateshead and Sunderland all remained firmly under Labour control.

In Newcastle, the Liberal Democrats are again the majority party with Labour as the opposition.

The Tories failed yet again to get one council seat in the whole of the city.

There's no doubt that should the Tories get elected as the UK government at some time in the future it will be as a result primarily of support of the electorate in the London and the South East and against the wishes of the people of the North-East.

A Tory general election victory at some time in the future will see the north-south divide back on the political agenda with a vengeance.

Paul Rivers, Wallsend.

AAMBULANCE

YET again rural Northumberland is being downgraded.

The announcement of the closure of the Bellingham ambulance station is yet another indictment of this Government's view of rural dwellers, and Rothbury, Wooler, Haltwhistle, Weardale, Middleton and Barnard Castle residents can all now stop sleeping well at night.

We are all targeted with the same plan, which had claimed to be open to local discussion and review.

Apparently not.

One lone paramedic will not have the equipment, nor ability to deal with serious emergencies, while waiting for the ambulance to arrive.

I do not believe that the eightminute ambulance response time is likely to be met, and I dread the day when an avoidable fatality is the result of this new slimmed-down policy.

I feel sorry for the lone paramedic who will have to watch this happen, unable to provide adequate lifesaving care.

When are local residents' voices going to be listened to once more?

Or are we all to suffer the fate of being forced to conform to rules which may work somewhere, but not here?

Rural life is not urban life, and we need to be given the flexibility to work for the individual communities.

Anne-Marie Trevelyan, Political Spokesman, Berwick Conservatives.

FOREIGN PRISONERS

I DID not say, as Tony Kelly alleges, that only 12 violent foreign criminals had been released, but that they included three murderers and nine rapists. The number of murderers has since been revised to four (HAS, May 17).

May I be allowed to make my position clearer. I do not think that convicts who pose a serious threat to public safety should ever be released, whether they are British or foreign.

As Mr Kelly says, one rape or murder is one too many.

However, I see no reason to deport immigrants who are legitimately settled here, if they commit relatively minor crimes and serve their sentences.

That is a view shared by the mother of the victim of a sexual assault, who said that the man who assaulted her daughter should not be deported. I can assure Mr Kelly that I am not nonchalant about this fiasco, but there are aspects of it which are being overlooked.

For example, while some foreigners have been released without being considered for deportation, others are kept in jail for many months beyond their release dates while decisions are made about whether or not they should be deported.

Pete Winstanley, Durham.

EUROPE

THE British Government recently tried to help the Coventry car industry but the EU Commission blocked the aid as "anticompetitive". The plant closed, hundred of jobs were lost.

However, the same EU Commission has just approved a system whereby the French government can guarantee loans to French shipyards of up to 80 per cent of the project costs to finance ship construction.

The EU Commission said the scheme does not constitute state aid and does not threaten to distort competition.

If the system is being planned and implemented by the French government and is designed to make it easier for French shipyards to win contracts to build ships then how can it be anything other than state aid and unfair competition?

Because it is the French government giving aid to French shipbuilders then of course it is completely different to the British Government giving unfair and anticompetitive aid to British firms.

The UK is being taken for a fool by the rest of the EU. We are paying them to take away our jobs, close our industries, decimate our fish stocks, etc. . .

I hope the British people wake up to what is going on before we have nothing left to give away. Without doubt, we would be better off out! - Stephen Allison, Ukip councillor, Hartlepool Borough Council Tread carefully ALAN Wolinski, the RSPCA Northern regional manager (HAS, May 16) should tread very carefully over the emotive subject of animals used in experiments.

The RSPCA is surely worldlywise enough to know it will attract the 'lunatic fringe' of animal rights extremists - if you don't vigorously condemn them then you surely condone them.

The behaviour of these extremists is frightening and should have been stamped on and condemned from the start, not be waited until the latest vile act has angered so many that new laws had to be made, too much damage had already been done to too many innocent people for far too long. The irony is this country has strict rules that monitor industry carefully.

If these stupid terrorists are allowed to continue they will drive a very lucrative industry away from our watchful eyes into countries where there is no control and cruelty is the accepted thing.

Would that be what the extremists would call progress?

And will they be brave enough to do their worst in these countries when they will be as vulnerable as the people they have been harassing?

Name supplied, Stockton-on-Tees.