IT was interesting to read your article on the Quadrus Centre, the new £5million "state-of-the-art" office development overlooking the lake at Boldon Business Park, South Tyneside.
Councillor Eddie McAtominey comments that it "dominates the skyline on one of the major gateways into the borough" and that "illuminated at the night, people will see it at is spectacular best".
Perhaps he can see something we don't.
The other day, sitting on the bus passing the place, the two ladies in front said "What an eyesore. Build it, they want to get rid of it!"
I agree that it has spoilt the area and surprised that it was rubber-stamped by the council and received such glowing reports.
If architects come up with other crackpot ideas to ruin pleasant water feature areas with ugly buildings I hope they will forget them.
With luck, the Quadrus Centre will disappear as quickly as building disasters of the 1960s and be replaced by more eye-pleasing structures for me, the ladies on the bus, the lakes' fishermen and the fish.
John Aspinall,
Fence Houses

Ethically justified
AS your correspondent Neil O'Brien says (Echo, March 24), whole streets stand empty while thousands are homeless. This is a scandal and something should be done about it. But is it right to blame it all on Peter Walls and his "housing group"?
Landowners all over the country are holding land idle in the hope of capital gains as the demand for building land gets worse and people become desperate to buy almost any house at any price.
I should like to propose a radical change in the law to cure not only this evil but the whole structure of land ownership in a way that is fair and just.
I would charge tax not on houses or other products of labour but on land. That means all private land according to its best use under planning rules and without regard for the actual use to which it is put. That is, tax the location value, not the improvements.
The whole streets that Neil O'Brien sees standing empty would then be paying tax and thus sending a clear message to the landowner to get it back into useful development or sell it to others who will.
Likewise the owners of good industrial land would pay tax on the land itself, in use or not, according to its location, value and planning permission available.
So here again the replacement of other taxes with a simple location value charge would constitute a clear penalty and discourage those who would hold the land idle, sometimes even with vandalised buildings tax free.
It has been calculated that, once fully implemented, land value tax could replace most of income tax, local and national. This is not only empirically beneficial but ethically justified.
Nobody made the land and its value today is due not to anything the owner has done but on the efforts of the surrounding community. Therefore its location value rightly belongs to that community and they should benefit from it.
So, by taxing the rental value of the land, we are simply recovering for the community that value which the community has generated and reducing income tax and other revenue-raising taxes accordingly.
The landowner cannot pass on this charge to an occupier since, if the market would bear higher rents, then rents would have been increased anyway. He has to lower his price until he gets a taker or else pay the tax out of his own pocket.
The fact that, in this way, we extract the excess profit from Peter Walls and his like is just a welcome extra.
Owen Dumpleton,
Washington

Tory cuts exposed
HONESTY is not the best policy for Tory members according to Michael Howard, who has recently sacked senior Tory Howard Flight for telling the truth about proposed public spending cuts.
Mr Flight was chief of Tory elections economic policy when he told a meeting (recorded on tape) of right-wing Tories the spending cuts they had announced of £35billion would be greatly exceeded if they won power.
He elaborated on how the proposed cuts had been diluted "for politically expedient reasons" – in other words fool the public.
Mr Flight appeared to indicate he had no scruples about deceiving people by adding, "whatever the fine principles you have to win an election first before you can actually get on with what needs to be done."
Mr Flight then stated that the promise last month to offer pensioners a council tax rebate was "nakedly political". In layman's language this presumably means a gimmick used to attract votes and would probably not be implemented.
Michael Howard denies the above said, but he is contradicted by Professor P Minford, economic adviser to the last Tory Government, who said – at the same meeting – Michael Howard was following Baroness Thatcher's strategy in making vague promises before elections and then taking radical actions afterwards.
As a nation we should thank Mr Flight for exposing the true extent of Tory spending cuts which if activated would devastate public services and march the population back to Thatcherism.
W Quinn,
Sunderland

Longer wait for cash
WHEN the Chancellor announced in his budget that pensioners were to get help with their council tax, he was applauded by all the members of his party as having trumped the Conservative proposals.
What he didn't say was when this rebate would be paid. Any normal person would expect this to be carried out by the local authorities and just deducted from the council tax bill. No, no, no. Too easy.
Instead, the Department of Works and Pensions will deal with it and not until December when it will be paid, along with the winter fuel allowance.
J Jones,
Sunderland

Priorities are misplaced
AS I was out walking my dog the other night on the Wear View Estate via the broken glass, discarded beer cans and crisp packets, I couldn't help but be amazed at the hypocrisy of Sunderland Council.
Every lamppost was adorned with notices proclaiming that dog owners should be responsible and pick up any mess left by their dogs (or face a fine of up to £1,000).
While I, and the majority of dog owners would endorse the request and comply with it fully, there are a number of major anomalies here.
Do we consider broken glass, which is rife on the estate, to be less of a health hazard than dog mess? Obviously so, judging by the fact that there does not appear to be even one litter bin on the whole estate.
I don't suppose the possibility of providing a good old-fashioned road sweeper (presumably now known as a Mobile Health and Waste Executive) has ever been considered?
While the request to pick up dog mess is admirable it is not particularly tempting when considering that there are only three disposal bins available on the whole of the estate – all at the Plumtree Avenue end. So those of us who comply with the regulations have to tote our full "goody bags" around indefinitely.
It is sometimes difficult to retrieve the "waste" when most areas of grassland on the estate are playing host to various football matches, with the signs declaring "no ball games allowed" being regularly used as goal posts.
This appears to be once again a glaring example of misplaced priorities by Sunderland Council.
Sick and Dog Tired,
Sunderland

Council staff praised
I WOULD like to thank the civic centre personnel in the enviromental health department for their prompt action in deploying the dog warden in the South Hylton area, long may it continue.
Also thanks to the cleansing department for their efforts in trying to keep the streets and back lanes clear of menacing dog excrement. Keep up the good work.
jbw,
South Hylton

We do our bit ...
HAVING frequented Houghton Park each evening to walk my dog I am disgusted at the lack of service provided by the council to empty the bins. In particular the bin next to the concreted area beside the play area.
As a dog walker I ensure that I pick up my dog's waste and dispose of it. For the last six weeks the bin which I frequently use has been overflowing and I've had to put the waste on the ground.
Having contacted the council, I am told that "... all of our workers are on holiday this week ..." and "... I can't find anyone with a key for it ..."
Dog walkers are constantly asked to pick up the dog waste (and rightly so), but when I do so I find the bins are overflowing with the stuff on a children's playground!
Come on Sunderland Council, stop blaming each other and do the job our council tax pays you to do!
Anne-Marie Hill,
Houghton

Who runs council?
SUNDERLAND Council are now going to have a look at the port.
Councillors have been looking at it for years and done nothing about it.
The plans will not be drawn up by the council, they are going to hire a team of experts, more cost to the people of Sunderland.
Six years ago there was a site visit by councillors to the port to see what could be done to make it more profitable. There were some very good suggestions put forward and the management asked for a bit more time to draw up the plans. It was agreed, no one ever thought it would take all of this time, and they are still looking at the problem.
Who is running the council, the councillors or the private sector?
We do not need any more shops in the city. The vacant land at the port should be used to bring in industry and employment which is badly needed. If much more is hived off we won't need as many councillors, so a good money saving could take place as we won't need them.
It's time we had a monthly news sheet, informing the electorate of what the number of committees, the councillors and cabinet do, what decisions are taken, and how they affect the public, or is it a secret society?
Come on the citizens of Sunderland, wake up, and see if you are getting a raw deal from this body. We have one of the best local papers, the Sunderland Echo. How often do the councillors use it?
Jack S Bedlington,
Concord,
Washington

Humps not answer
SINCE when did our area of Millfield become a trouble spot?
The report of "accidents" makes one say, where is the evidence? We've all heard of lies, damned lies and statistics.
This is a low traffic area with not many children and a lot of older residents. There are cars parked on both sides of streets which makes it impossible for children to even try to play there. They tend to find streets with no access to traffic.
The new proposal is akin to prior ones – namely road humps! It is nearly four years since the first proposal was abandoned. It was said other methods would be found to slow traffic, but the council were quite happy to leave things the same for four years and risk the so-called potential for accidents.
Since when did Marjorie Matthews play politics with road safety? Councillor Anderson played the "party card." He is the first to mention politics.
Road safety is not a political issue for me. Since when did I become his political opponent?
According to the "Daily Express" March 18, 2005 dangerous potholes in Britain's roads could remain for at least 10 years because of £1billion shortfall in funds. Roads should be repaired, never mind humped.
Bus firm "First" has threatened to axe a bus route in Sheffield unless the city council replaces the humps.
London Ambulance Service says hundreds of patients die every year because of delays caused by speed bumps. They blame the humps, which can cost up to £15,000 each, for increased congestion and pollution.
In the village of Nottington, Dorset, drivers say they have never seen so many speed bumps in such a small space. They complain of damage to their vehicles and say that their village is twinned with the Himalayas.
Bus drivers in Reading are threatening to strike because their routes take them over more than 1,000 humps per day.
That's Life magazine says that according to the Health Development Agency, reducing the speed limit to 20mph in residential areas would save 13,000 children from death or injury each year. The HDA is asking local authorities to implement a reduction of speed to 20mph.
In Stockton after complaints from taxi drivers etc humps were removed and chicanes were put in their place.
At Thorney Close a bus firm is refusing to allow their buses to go to a certain area because of humps. This is causing inconvenience to many would-be passengers.
As I said, humps are becoming a thing of the past. How about our council starting to live in the present?
Marjorie Matthews,
Millfield,
Sunderland

Give it a rest, please
I WOULD like to air my views regarding the many negative comments regarding the works to Queen Alexandra Bridge.
I am sick to the back teeth of hearing people whinging about the works. I'm sure they would be shouting even louder if the bridge rusted and started to fall to bits because it hadn't been looked after.
But isn't this just yet another excuse to have a go at Sunderland Council.
In reply to Ron McQuillan's letter of March 29 – he must think that Sunderland Council has a skip sitting outside full of money for a "rainy day" – does he realise how long it takes to build a bridge and surely council money can't be used on just one item? Would he like his council tax tripled for the next five years to raise the funds for this new bridge?
Would he also like to dispose of his own household rubbish, replace the bulb in his street lamp when it goes out, clean the streets himself, repair the holes in the roads, because these are some of the things that the money funds? Somehow I don't think so.
Everyone should just accept that these works must be done, stop moaning, chill a little and make life a little easier for yourselves.
JC
Sunderland