Letter: Councils' historic and cultural value can't be ignored

Sir: Your report of the probable abolition of county councils is disturbing. In Northamptonshire 27,000 people replied to a questionnaire, 88 per cent advocating no change. An even higher proportion expressed support for the retention of my local district council of Wellingborough, which has one of the lowest council taxes in England. Here the two-tier system works well, county and district councils giving complementary services. Some services such as highways are best served at county level, others, such as housing, at district or borough level.

Despite this, the government commissioners are proposing to abolish the county council and seven district councils and replace them with three unitary authorities with start-up costs of up to pounds 15m. As a school governor, I know that changes to the education authority will bring only more headaches to schools, and other local government departments will be similarly affected. Is this really what people want?

Yours faithfully,

M. C. WEBBER

Earls Barton

Northamptonshire

7 September