Spennymoor

I HAVE read with interest the letters about the state of Spennymoor town

centre (HAS, Oct 17, 23 and 26). I agree with both sides that the centre needs rejuvenating.

I relocated to County Durham 18 months ago. On my first visit to Spennymoor I felt disappointed and shocked by the state of the shopping centre.

The impression created by the town centre was one of a town in decline. Numerous shops were empty and untended, a state that they are still in today.

The first impression created by a town is important when trying to attract new people and investment, especially when its future growth and prosperity depends upon it. I settled in Spennymoor drawn by the choice of new housing available and not the town centre facilities. It is now time for the council and shopping centre owners to invest and create a place that everybody can be proud of. - James Fryer, Spennymoor.

IN HIS letter (HAS, Oct 26) Councillor Ben Ord states the Liberal Democrats have an alternative plan for the regeneration of Spennymoor Shopping Centre which appears to be all style and no substance.

There is no timescale or cost for their proposed development; neither is there any comment on the relocation of the present businesses on Festival Walk.

What effect would the noise and pollution from the demolition have on the residents of Oxclose Crescent, and the trade of the Kingfisher pub and Co-op supermarket.

Four bus stands would have to be moved further up the High Street, causing congestion at the road island.

Trade in the centre of the town would be disrupted for at least three years, forcing people to change their shopping habits, and could the Lib-Dems guarantee the shoppers would return, knowing new development is costly?

In our modern mobile society where the accent is on creation and innovation, the answer to the problem of regeneration is through decorum not demolition. - Thomas Conlon, Kirk Merrington, Spennymoor.

WEAVING

I WOULD like to thank everyone who helped with or visited the recent Designed for the Dales exhibition entitled Weaving Ways.

The exhibition featured the work of two very talented basket makers, Lise Bech and Lois Walpole. The work was on show for a total of eight days when it visited venues in Teesdale, Cumbria and Weardale. Almost 700 people came to see the exhibition and helped to make it a success.

The final exhibition of this series will take place in early summer 2001. I hope it will prove to be as successful as all the others. - Denise Alexander, Project Co-ordinator, Boldron, Barnard Castle.

EUROPE

IT WAS Ted Heath's government that first started our demise into a Federal Europe when he took us into what was then the Common Market.

Margaret Thatcher's administration took us further into federation but insisted on retention of veto on the areas of national interest. The Maastricht Treaty, signed by John Major, again took us further away from control of our own affairs but declined to accept the social chapter and adoption of the single currency (EMU).

I do not defend the Tory record on European Union affairs. It is every bit to blame for the dangerous situation we now find ourselves in as is Labour.

It so happens that Labour, since coming to power, has steadily reversed Tory safeguards. At the summit in Nice in December it will be under pressure to accept QMV (Qualified Majority Voting), giving up the veto along with other key agenda terms.

By the end of 2000, if Tony Blair swallows all of the Nice agenda, and there is every reason to believe he will, Britain as an independent nation state could cease to exist.

This is not alarmist nonsense but reality. - D Pascoe, Hartlepool.

I WISH to draw your attention to the face that signatories to treaties which were signed in Rome, Maastricht and Amsterdam are illegal in the United Kingdom.

This has been so since 1972, and I would further argue that our membership of the EEC is null and void and should therefore be declared so.

The Magna Carta dates from 1297 and has been cited in every reign of every monarch since this date. This is why if the Government signs the treaty in Nice then we will lose our rights to hunting, fishing and all our rights to countryside pursuits.

So it is up to each and every one to stand up and be counted before it's too late. - G Barker, Ripon.

RELIGION

ERIC Gendle (HAS, Oct 27) seems to have his own blinkered views.

I simply do no accept the teachings of those who believe that their religious and political beliefs are the truth or have the answers. One just has to see what has been the result of a few thousand years of religious and political bigotry.

If there is a God then he must have turned his back on us a long time ago. My faith has more to do with belief in a creative force that is absolute, that shows no favour to any individuals, group or nation.

We are a few thousand years old intellectually, a drop in the ocean in the space of creation, so I would suggest there is a long way to go before we can call ourselves civilised.

But to be civilised we will first have to learn to live together in harmony and peace, that's if we survive that long. - J Young, Crook.

CHARITY

ONLY a few months ago Mozambique was flooded and millions of pounds were sent across from Britain to help out.

Now with parts of Britain under water and in great need, will we be seeing the goodwill returned? I doubt it.

Whilst our old folk are freezing to death because they can't afford to heat their houses and look after themselves, not a penny should be sent overseas. - Trevor Agnew, Darlington.

FARM STANDARDS

THE Food Standards Agency's demand for an end to farm animal cannibalism comes far too late.

It is quite incredible that a total ban on the use of animal by-products in food for cattle and sheep was not introduced in 1988 when meat and bone was banned. Instead, not only blood and tallow, but also fish meal, feathers and poultry offal have remained permitted ingredients all this time.

If it eventually turns out that some sheep have been infected with BSE, there can be little doubt that this practice is to blame. - P Winstanley, Chester-le-Street.

GLOBAL WARMING

I HAVE no doubt that the recent severe weather will lead to demands that we speed up the process of covering the hills and coasts of Britain with wind turbines in order to combat global warming.

Developing wind farms is simply fiddling while Rome burns. Since the petrol crisis of the early 1970s, billions of dollars of subsidy have encouraged the construction of tens of thousands of wind turbines world wide. Result: 15 per cent of the world's energy is produced from the wind, 99.85 per cent from nuclear and conventional sources. Over the same three decades, energy consumption has soared. In the West, motor traffic has grown out of control while deep-freezes, videos, hi-fi equipment, computers, faxes and microwaves come as standard. In the East, China and India power their industrial revolutions not with wind, which can't be relied upon to boil a kettle, let alone run a steel plant, but with the dirtiest of conventional power stations. Annual increases in CO2 emissions dwarf the 30-year total of CO2 pollution saved by wind turbines.

If the Government is serious about reducing CO2 it must invest in public transport, in rail freight capacity, in energy-saving measures and in providing emerging Third World industries with the cash and the expertise to clean up their energy generation. That would cost more that the Prime Minister's recent "green" gesture of putting £50m into offshore wind development, but it would achieve serious results.

It may be the whim of the British to cover their hills with giant windmills, just as their rich forebears covered their landscapes with grottos, hermits' caves and ruins. But let no one be kidded that these 21st Century follies aren't doing anything for global warming. - Robert Woodward, Country Guardian, Surrey