REGIONAL ASSEMBLY: ELECTED regional government has not been asked for by the people and nowhere has the 'will of the people' been demonstrated by the Government or any of those supporting the regionalisation agenda, except with misleading statistics and propaganda.

The whole charade continues apace regardless and we welcome the exposure by Government spokeman in the Lords, Lord Rooker.

His statement in the Lords this week will anger many in the three regions who have been offered referenda.

I am sure that there will be many suggestions as to how the £30m could have been better spent in each region. Figures for this unwanted project are long overdue and will only serve to create more anger and public disillusionment.

This estimate of £30m includes all costs necessary to establish an assembly, including the cost of local government reviews, referenda and the first elections.

A point to bear in mind also is that the estimate just for the building of the Scottish Parliament was £50m. They have spent to date £370m and it is still not completed.

Just remember it is our hard earned taxes which are paying for this folly. - Neil Herron, NEARA, The No Campaign, Sunderland.

RAILWAY HERITAGE

IN your excellent Comment column (Echo, Sept 10) on the inauguration of the Shildon Railway Heritage Centre you posed the question 'why isn't the Weardale Railway being given all the backing they require for their equally exciting project?'

As a Director of the Railway can I add that although we would appreciate any further backing we could obtain, we are already getting tremendous support and assistance from both Wear Valley District Council and Durham County Council.

We have also obtained and are using 'starter' grants from three funding bodies and have, this week, placed full applications for the main project with the Regional Development Agency (One NorthEast), European and Lottery funds.

If all goes according to plan we hope to initiate a limited service next summer and in the following years extend this to Shildon and to Darlington.

We have in place an informal agreement with the National Rail Museum that we will co-operate in running trains from Shildon into Weardale and help spread the economic benefits of both projects. To make it all happen on time we now need three things: a successful round of grant funding, the timely co-operation and support of the various official railway authorities in granting licences and the continued growth of our volunteer support. - GC Mudd, Weardale Railways Ltd, Stanhope Station.

SHIPS CONTRACT

WHAT a load of nonsense Durham County Councillor Bob Pendlebury has said (Echo, Sept 10) in relation to the creation of 200 new jobs at Able UK on Teesside.

Clearly this company has the expertise to carry out the work of dismantling the American vessels and, in turn, this could lead to even more jobs in the future for the North-East.

The comments made by Coun Pendlebury are ill informed and scare mongering, and also anti-American.

Perhaps Coun Pendlebury would like to go down to Teesside and make the same comments in public. - County Councillor John Shuttleworth, Member for Weardale, County Hall, Durham.

PETER MULLEN

PETER Mullen (Echo, Sept 9) is at it again, clearly singing from a different songsheet from his Commander in Chief.

"Fight ye not evil" is the clear command. No, says the rector, continue and intensify the war on terror.

"We can transform Iraq into something decent," the rector exclaims.

Who are these "we", I ask? And, more to the point: what is decent, and for whom, in whose name and by what right?

Cheaper oil, perhaps?

What do the Commandments say again? Yes, the ones about killing and coveting. - Ben Andriessen, Ramshaw.

WATER SUPPLIES

CONTRARY to Kate Lennon's misleading assertion (Echo, Sept 10) natural fluoride is vastly different from the artificial fluoride that the fluoride-pushers want to put into our drinking water.

This artificial fluoride is up to 25 times more toxic than natural fluoride. That is why we don't want it contaminating our drinking water.

It is completely false to suggest that artificial fluoride, an industrial waste by-product, is the same as natural fluoride. It is not. It is much more dangerous.

Even in areas like Hartlepool where fluoride does occur naturally, surveys have shown dental fluorosis (permanent brown staining of teeth) is much worse than in areas that are fluoride free.

It is also false to suggest that dental fluorosis is only cosmetic. Dental fluorosis is the first visible sign of fluoride poisoning such as skeletal fluorosis, which causes deformities to bones, arthritis, osteoporosis and hip fractures in the elderly.

How could pensioners afford to pay for tap water they could no longer drink safely and buy bottled water as well?

Please ask these fluoride-pushing ostriches one question: if fluoride really is safe and effective, why have all the other European countries now either banned it or abandoned it after 40 years of failing to prevent tooth decay? - Alan Hall, National Pure Water Association, Darlington.