SHOPPING: I WAS delighted to read (Echo, Sept 30) about the proposed new development for shopping and leisure in Darlington, expanding Queen Street westwards.

It sounds like a really well thought out and planned development, accommodating good parking facilities and bringing more choice of shopping to what is already a good shopping centre.

A new cinema will certainly attract local people and, as a Darlington person who still visits the town frequently, this will be ideal.

I do not feel it will have a detrimental effect on the High Row, but rather increase visitors to a lovely market town. - SC Hunton, Northallerton.

ROAD SAFETY

THE Northern Echo's coverage on motorcycle deaths is very comprehensive.

In the last six days, using my motorcycle, there have been four occasions where my actions have saved me.

So do not assume or presume that motorcyclists are to blame. - K Grainger, Darlington.

SERVICE STATIONS

I HAD always believed that the highwaymen became an extinct species sometime during the 18th century.

This is a fallacy, however, for highway robbery is still perpetuated by the service stations on our motorways. - EH Armstrong, Bishop Auckland.

IRAQ

ACCORDING to Tony Blair's dodgy dossier, Iraq had 3,000 tonnes of precursor chemicals, together with Tabun, a nerve agent, sarin, 1.5 tonnes of VX nerve agent, material for 25,500 litres of anthrax spores, botulinum toxin, alfatoxins and ricin.

Iraq also possessed mobile laboratories and 30,000 bombs, rockets and shells to deliver poison gas. Moreover, it held L29 remotely piloted delivery systems, nuclear weapons materials and 20 al-Hussein missiles capable of hitting British bases in Cyprus.

Iraq is no bigger than France, has no tree cover and there are 150,000 occupying troops there looking for weapons.

They have found nothing because there aren't any weapons. The Government lied. There can be no other conclusion. Mr Blair must go. - J Gilmore, Bishop Auckland.

EUROPE

IN reply to Jamie Mash (HAS, Sept 25), may I suggest that during the Thatcher era, when UKIP members were probably good members of the Tory party, the people of this country were encouraged to become property owners on the pretext they would leave their descendants inherited wealth to solve their future problems.

What they were not told was that, by covering arable land with cement, eventually they would have to rely on other people to feed them. So the house race was on with some spectators watching it very carefully.

Who has been buying the cement and water companies? The French. Who supplies the wood for the floor, roof and furniture and also the gas for the central heating? The Norwegians and Americans. Who is making the refrigerators? The Italians. Who manufactures the Ford car standing on the cement drive? The Germans. Who provides the wages for Tyneside shipyard workers to purchase these necessary commodities? The Dutch.

Mr Mash admires other countries for being successful but he forgets to mention who, in the final analysis, is financing it.

The UKIP would like us to remain a plantation but if we take down the barriers then invite other friends to share the successful methods we use to create our wealth, then the plantation will no longer be required. - T Conlon, Spennymoor.

COUNCIL TAX

EVERY day there is something in the papers and on TV about pensions. Can anyone, other than a councillor, explain why the tax payer, having paid all the dues, should be expected to be over the moon to pay extra council tax to help maintain the pension rights of council workers because the investment of the councillors was even worse than some of the big investment companies?

Reduce the expense accounts meals, the nearly-free canteens, try doubling up when going to other council meetings, thereby just having one mileage to claim. In other words, physician heal thyself.

I'm sure other people have their own ideas of how not to waste money. - P Brown, Trimdon.

EVEN a child learning basic mathematics could organise government and council finances better and more fairly. At present the Government gives pensioners a rise to cover inflation at 3.1 per cent and then the council can raise the rates paid by these people by whatever percentage they think.

Why not tie pensions to the average wage and cut all benefits as they will not be needed if a reasonable pension is given?

Another aspect is when the government decides that someone has served the nation and suffered ill health through it, then it awards that person a war pension. Then some councils decide to take a cut of the awards. Why does the government not just hand over the money to the council in the first place and save the pensioner the trouble. - E Reynolds, Wheatley Hill.