SIR - Those of us who are struggling to ensure that Lottery cash goes to the most needy communities feel thoroughly undermined by the way money gets thrown at the Dome with far less public accountability than we are required to deliver.

However, there are two crumbs of comfort here. There will have been some regeneration of the Greenwich area come what may, albeit at a huge cost out of all proportion to the sort of funds we can get into regeneration schemes in cities like Bradford.

Secondly, there is an important political lesson. It demonstrates that if the political will is there, money can be found. In order to save face for a succession of ministers from Michael Heseltine to Peter Mandelson, those in high places can conjure up the money as a political priority.

Anti-poverty campaigners can take heart. Next time we are told that it is politically impossible to raise extra money from taxation to produce a significant increase in the basic retirement pension, we shall be able to reply that huge public scepticism didn't stop the Dome getting lavish subsidies from public funds.

Rev Geoff Reid, Touchstone Centre, Merton Road, Bradford 7.

SIR - What a luxury it is to wash away half-a-pint of urine with two gallons of drinking water. At the same time we spend hard-earned cash buying mineral water.

Meanwhile, thousands of millions of people in the world still use other people's effluent to drink and wash in. When things go wrong they get dysentery, cholera and children die from diarrhoea.

When I vote in the next election, I will be thinking more about what our Government does for the poor of the world in giving others the life-giving things we take for granted than whether I pay a few pence more tax.

I wish others would do the same.

Andrew Pring, Nicholas Close, Bradford 7.

SIR - In response to Arthur Bentley's letter (August 23), why do some people think that an English parliament will split the UK?

An English parliament may actually strengthen the Union, not destroy it, as regionalisation will when the proposed English regions realise how disadvantaged and weak they are at the mercy of Brussels.

Does the writer not know that the ministers of the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish parliament/assemblies can/will do this? It is this fact that will lead to England being ruled by Brussels not an English parliament.

If democracy had prevailed and the people of England had been consulted about devolution, the sense of gross unfairness of the present devolutionary system would not have occurred.

Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs can vote on English affairs but English MPs are forbidden to even discuss theirs. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland get at least 22 per cent more per head of UK funding than the people of England under an out-dated Barnett formula. This must be stopped.

That is why I support an organisation called Campaign for an English Parliament. I urge all your readers to do the same.

Richard Jowett, Peterborough Road, Undercliffe.

SIR - In refuting Tony Rawlinson's suggestion that David Senior was parachuted into the area by Conservative Central Office, Bryan Hobson states that he (Senior) is a governor of Salt Grammar School.

I have been a Parent Governor at Salt for four years. I have never seen Mr Senior at the school nor did I know he was supposed to be a governor.

If he has very recently been appointed, I would like to welcome him, but I wonder whether such a recent appointment does not in fact add weight to Mr Rawlinson's argument. Or does his lack of visibility result from entanglement in his parachute?

Ronda Christensen, Redburn Drive, Shipley.

SIR - A crackdown on licensed and unlicensed motor vehicles, particularly motor cycles and scooters using Council-owned property, parks and cemeteries, etc, and with scant regard for life or limb of the youngsters or the elderly, is long overdue.

In a recent article in the T&A, a police spokesman stated that "appropriate action will be taken". What action?

At the moment the culprits, despite some efforts from the park-rangers and, in isolated cases the police, seem to ignore and flout the law with impunity.

The unlawful vehicle-users, however, are not the only blot on the landscape here in Bradford.

During the summer holidays, gangs of young children (both sexes) have been intent on creating mayhem and criminal damage throughout the Bradford area, unchecked, uncivilised and certainly unloved by those of us brought up to respect people and property.

It may be a backward step but I now believe that the punishment must fit the crime and that corporal punishment may be the answer to those lacking parental control.

Stepping up park-ranger and police patrols would not go amiss either!

Donald Firth, Harrogate Street, Undercliffe.

SIR - The T&A Comment of September 4 suggests that the views of those opposed to First Bradford bus company's changes should be channelled through local community associations.

Some bus users, for whatever reason, are unwilling to attend these meetings but are still bus users.

These include older and disabled people who apparently prefer to use the privacy of contacting their local council representative to express their disapproval.

The main issue is: why should the method of providing public transport that receives public money to provide some services be altered without public consultation?

P Lancaster (Eccleshill councillor), Flaxman Road, Eccleshill.

SIR - I am researching my Dewhirst family who came from the Hebden Bridge area of Halifax.

Some of the family stayed in the Halifax area and some moved to Saltaire around 1853 to work for Titus Salt. They lived in Saltaire village for about 50 years.

Some of the Dewhirst names were: James, William, Eccles, Young, Rushworth, Charles, Leonard, Arthur. Another family name is O'Leary.

If any Dewhirsts or O'Learys can remember grandparents or great-grandparents living in the Saltaire or Hebden Bridge areas, I would be pleased to hear from them.

P Holland, 2 Green Hall Park, Shelf, Halifax HX3 7PZ.