DURHAM PUMA: YOUR report (Echo, Mar 10) that the Iberian lynx is being hounded to extinction in Spain provides a possible explanation of the origin of the Durham puma (Echo, Mar 11). It is an asylum seeker. - David Kelsey, Middlesbrough.

Bishop Auckland

NEITHER the Labour Party nor the people of Bishop Auckland need Jim Tague's sympathy (HAS, Mar 9).

We have selected a candidate from four talented Labour women who will ably represent local communities.

His sympathy would have been better spent on the thousands of people who lost their jobs in the constituency during 18 years of Tory neglect, on the people who lost their homes and businesses due to 15 per cent interest rates, negative equity and Black Wednesday.

He maybe should sympathise with the children who were educated in poorly equipped and crumbling schools. He may even have some sympathy left for the old people who died in their homes because they could not afford to heat them.

There was precious little sympathy from the Tories back then and we neither need or want his sympathy now.

We must not let the Tories mess things up again. - Peter Moore, President Bishop Auckland Constituency Labour Party, Spennymoor.

Darlington

HOW can a small town like Bishop Auckland be able to build a multiplex cinema, when a much larger town like Darlington has to do with an old-fashioned cinema on North Road (Echo, Mar 9)? - Christopher Wardell, Darlington.

SEVERAL businesses in the Morton Park area of Darlington are dissatisfied with the attitude of Darlington council to their plight when faced with travellers trespassing on their land.

The contrast with the council's approach when travellers threaten its own commercial interests suggests a bad dose of double standards.

When, last November, Landteam requested the council assist with the removal of travellers on its land, it was told that it would take three weeks due to the need to send health and welfare visitors to assess the well-being of the trespassers.

Landteam only managed to get rid of the travellers, on each of the two occasions that they have trespassed, by paying a substantial amount of money to a firm of bailiffs.

In contrast, when the same group of travellers subsequently squatted on the council's "new prestigious" development at Morton Palms, the council acted to remove them immediately.

Is there one rule of expediency for the council and one of red-tape delay for taxpayers? - Anthony Frieze, Darlington Conservative candidate.

YOU have reported several experts assuring people that there are no problems with the West Park development in Darlington on the site of a former chemical works.

Yet Barry Keel, the outgoing chief executive of Darlington council, said: "What we once had was an old tip, with high levels of pollution, at a key entrance to the town..." (Echo, Feb 23).

I hope these words do not rebound on the council. - RH Brook, Darlington.

TRANSPORT

WHAT major improvements have the Government made to the transport infrastructure of the North-East since 1997? None.

The North-East is virtually the only region in the entire country which is not linked to the national motorway network. There are gaps between Dishforth and Scotch Corner, and between Newcastle and Edinburgh.

Add to that the fact that the A66 has not been made all dual carriageway; that key arterial roads like the A1M and the A19 are choked with traffic and are in desperate need of being widened; and that there is chronic gridlock for motorists every day trying to get across the River Tyne.

Go back to the travel atlas. If other parts of the country can be generously provided with motorway and dual carriageway links, why not the North-East?

What we need is investment in the transport infrastructure of the North-East, not a political sop like a regional assembly. - B Bowron, Newton Aycliffe.

IMMIGRATION

MIKE Baker, Stockton LibDem candidate (HAS, Mar 4) maintains we should take yet more foreigners into our country on top of the millions already here. Maybe he should look at an atlas and compare the huge continent his African friends have left with our own tiny country. Ours is hugely over-populated; Africa is not.

This continued pressure by the political left wing to take in more and more foreigners is beginning to look like a deliberate plot to destroy our nation state and force it into the European superstate which itself is being subjected to the same left wing rhetoric with regards to immigration. - David Emmerson, Darlington.

THE BBC

THE BBC has paid around £4,000 to convicted burglar Brendan Fearon to take part in a documentary exploring householders' rights (Echo, Mar 5). This leaves a nasty taste in my mouth.

Tony Martin, the convicted householder, also took part in the programme but he received nothing.

BBC will argue "public interest" to justify this disgraceful situation. I would suggest the public would rather not have had this miscreant's input had they known he would receive around £4,000 from us the licence payers.

The BBC ought to be ashamed. I doubt they are. - Robert Bridgett, Shildon.

DAVID SHEPPARD

DURING the 1962-63 Ashes tour of Australia, David Sheppard, the cricketer turned bishop who has just died, (Echo, Mar 7) earned himself a reputation for dropping catches.

During one Test match, things had got to such a stage that captain Ted Dexter banished Sheppard to the outfield where he found himself beneath a towering steepler.

No-one could be sure that he would make the catch and this caused a man in the crowd to call out: "We're praying for you, Rev."

David Sheppard did make the catch - but England went on to lose the Ashes. - LD Wilson, Guisborough.

FLOWER CHILDREN

MY Dutch friends were two of the original Flower Children who, from the end of the Second World War, laid flowers on the graves in Oosterbeek War Cemetery of all servicemen who were killed in the Battle for Arnhem in 1944.

Sixty years on, this is still continued by local schoolchildren.

Mary and Andries are planning to put together a Book of Remembrance with photographs as well as names to display at the cemetery.

They are therefore appealing for photographs from anyone who has relatives buried at the Oosterbeek Cemetery. There are 1,763 burials there.

Anyone who can help, please contact Andries Hoekstra, Landgraafstraat 20, Arnhem, Holland, Tel 026 3830141 or www.market garden.com. Many thanks. - R Hedley, Houghton-le-Spring.

SHILDON

TO walk from West Auckland Road to Brusselton roundabout on the outskirts of Shildon you need Wellingtons and a gas mask to get by the sludge (sewerage etc) over the footpath and road. It was reported a year ago, but to no avail. - PA Stacey, Shildon.