SEABURN residents and other people are complaining about the foul smell emanating from the Northumbria Water pumping station at the junction of Dykelands Road and Whitburn Road.
They also complain about the increase in sightings of rats in the vicinity of Pullman Lodge and the Seaburn centre. These complaints are coming at the start of the bathing season and could have a detrimental effect upon visitors and businesses in the area.
As councillors for Fulwell Ward we are concerned about the lack of resources being put into the seafront area and together with the loss of Blue Flag status for our beaches, because of polluted sea water, these two new problems will do little to enhance our attractive shoreline.
Councillors George Howe, Jack Walton and Robert Francis

Where do they live?
WHAT does local suggest? – immediate to the area, same district,village or town? In local politics the connection most people make is with the ward.
So why do the Tories in Sunderland insist on calling their candidates Local Conservatives?
An interesting fact is that the majority of Conservative councillors don't live in the ward they represent.
Does it matter? Maybe not, but it appears it does to the Sunderland Conservatives when you see the length they went to to conceal residence identification on the ballot paper of their new candidates.
Candidates with no ward residency omitted area if by policy. Couples from the same household declared different addresses. Mount Pleasant is good enough when you stand in Shiney Row, but gets the extra tag of Washington for the convenience of electioneering in the new town.
The Conservative candidate who pulled off a very narrow win in Ryhope gave street and post code for his address and omitted area. Did voters other than those who knew him realise his SR7 postcode is in Seaham? His piece in the Echo announced his family live in the village suggesting just what?
Maybe these matters are trivial. Politicians are always trying to con the public but it would help if the Tories stopped using local to describe their candidates when they are clearly not. I thought they were above spin.
The Composter

It's payback time
I WAS going to write a letter about the state of the Labour Party and the performance of Gordon Brown as Prime Minister.
However with a negative story about both seeming to crop up most days and either directly or otherwise, involving people like Cherie Blair, John Prescott, Lord Levy, Wendy Alexander, Charles Clarke, Stephen Byers, David Abrahams, Bob Symonds, Chris Mullin, Frank Field, and countless others, I think it might be best, at least for a few weeks, to let events take their course and just observe.
There is nothing worse for a serious politician like Brown to be the subject of ridicule and a long queue of people in his own Party seem ready to make such a contribution,
This suggests that Brown must have made many political enemies within his own ranks over the years and for those whom he crossed it certainly looks like payback time.
Coun Michael Dixon, (Conservative)
St Chad's Ward

Where there's blame
I THINK that those lawyers who make money from mistakes and technicalities should note that the police who took Gazza into custody after his recent problems detained him inside his own apartment.
I presume this was done under the Mental Health Act and I believe that this can only be done in public unless they had a doctor with them.
I therefore think that this may be an unlawful detention. Regardless that they may have saved his life there may well be a case against the police. Where there's blame etc. ching, ching.
Bobby Peel,
Sunderland

It was a sham
SO it has come to pass, the leader that your contributors hailed as the greatest thing since sliced bread has been found out. His handling of the economy that some misguided souls thought was fantastic was in fact a sham built upon debt and borrowing.
I know the price of oil worldwide is not within his control but the tax he puts on it is! This man with the full backing of Blair has just about bankrupt Great Britain plc. Inflation as most serious commentators will know is running at nearer eight per cent not the three that they try to spout on about, who bears the cost of this? Why, the working man of course.
This is a Government that taxes the poorest paid to waste yet more money on an illegal war in Iraq. What we are seeing now is only the start. Things are going to get so much worse for people. That is why the Government and Brown in particular got a roasting at the polls.
The rose tinted glasses have to come off your Labour contributors and see this Blair-Brown project for the disaster it is proving to be.
Do Not Despair