Council burden we don't want

SIR - I am one of the 90 per cent of resident voters that did not sign a petition calling for the institution of a parish council in Baildon.

I have recently returned to the parish council-free zone here in Baildon from living for almost five years in a parish council-burdened zone in Norfolk.

You can only imagine my dismay to have the spectre of an expensively useless organisation emerging here.

My experience is that other than the elected persons and the salaried administrators talking to each other and going through the motions of governing the benighted proles, parish councils produce only, trivia, zilch, empty pronouncements, and that at extreme high cost.

Consider the fact that every man, woman and child whatever age, in the Bradford Metropolitan Council area generates an average of slightly less than £30 per week in taxation (including council tax) just to fund the BMDC, getting precious little in services in return and that grudgingly provided.

It could be strongly argued that a minuscule increase in efficiency by that body would be the more desirable criteria than adding the financial burden of a useless and non-productive tier of government on the backs of the people.

Patrick M Roberts, Somerset Avenue, Baildon

An important role

SIR - The modern parish council has a range of powers and duties, not least a role in local planning decisions and in crime and disorder.

Thus Mr Pashley (T&A, January 26) is ill-informed if he thinks the parish council proposed for Baildon is just a "talking shop".

The bar on double taxation means every pound raised for local services by a parish council is taken off the district council tax bill, and so the overall tax bill for a household is unchanged.

The Urban Village programme for Baildon will have shown the value of decisions being taken locally on how to spend money for the benefit of the people of Baildon.

I would say that the £5-£15 per household that the parish council will cost is a bargain when it means local people can begin to have a real say about where they live.

Mark Fisher, Cornwall Crescent, Baildon

No extra funding

SIR - I am in favour of a parish council if it were funded from the current rates without a precept and empowered to do efficiently those things which the Council is paid to do, but doesn't.

However, while I respect John Cole, his statement (T&A, January 28) that he favours a precept, greater by an undisclosed amount than £15, beggars belief.

Those people who have already voted "yes" must be kicking themselves for handing the Council a potential blank cheque.

John Pashley, Westcliffe Avenue, Baildon

Ulterior motive

SIR - Gary Lorriman should be congratulating the Prime Minister of Thailand, Thaksin Sinawatra, for the swift action over the rape and murder of 21-year-old Briton Katherine Horton, not the judiciary (T&A, January 21) for it was he who made an unusual public appeal for the two young Thai killers to receive the "hardest punishment" and this was only done to try and save the country's image and prevent damage to its tourist industry.

It had nothing to do with justice for in Thailand, as in this country, defendants who plead guilty and show signs of remorse usually receive reduced sentences (even for murder).

Like Miss Horton's mother I am not an advocate of the death penalty but firmly believe that a life sentence should mean just that, not one that offers conditional remission.

However, unlike Mr Lorriman I cannot rejoice in the loss of young lives through succumbing to the deadly sin of lust.

David Rhodes, Croscombe Walk, Bradford

Dual approach

SIR - John Stead is right up to a point (T&A, January 24) when he suggests we will need to adapt to climate change but it is not that simple, as farmers in Portugal, the Amazon, Australia, and north-east Africa, citizens of New Orleans, and the polar bears of the sub-Arctic have found.

Beset by drought, forest and bush fires, torrential rain, hurricane winds and melting ice, adaptation is not an option.

Some crops will yield more, others won't and the lack of water and the extra heat will reduce the overall yields just at the time when the world population is set to increase by another billion and more.

As the ice sheets melt and the oceans expand it's probable the rise in sea level will be closer to a metre by the end of the century rather than John's estimate of 20 centimetres.

The sea level around the Maldives is going down because the land is rising, a consequence of the changes that produced the tsunami in that area.

We will struggle to adapt but it is not an alternative to reducing carbon emissions and adjusting the way we behave. We need both.

Keith Thomson, Heights Lane, Bradford

Can you help me?

SIR - Can any Ukrainian please help to ease my pain? Do they know or can they find out if any relative of a General Pawlenko is still around?

If so can they inform them that his grand-daughter Valentyna survived forced labour in Germany during the Second World War. She tried to trace relatives in the Kolomeya district but with no luck.

Valentyna's father was Akim Pawlenko who died just before she was born. He was an army officer.

Her mother Anastasia married a Polish man a few years later who took Val into his care and brought her up.

Please inform any of the general's survivors that Valentyna is buried in Haworth Moor Cemetery. She died in 2005, after 54 years of marriage and never once raised her voice in anger.

A more loving wife a man never had. So please, if you can help we can both rest in peace.

G W Hutchinson, 24 Woodlands Rise, Haworth, Keighley, BD22 8AJ

Football crazy?

SIR - I see that the German language course for those going to the World Cup is to be held on four successive Saturday afternoons (T&A, January 25).

Surely, if these are being targeted at football fans, it is obvious they should be run at any other time apart from Saturday afternoons when Football League games are on.

Colin Parker, March Cote Lane, Cottingley, Bingley