JOHN Prescott's latest proposal for a referendum on "home rule" in Yorkshire may not be exciting news for most people, but it could be the start of a dangerous slippery slope towards an expensive new layer of needless bureaucracy.

We should only have a referendum on home rule if the Government guarantees it will only introduce a mini-parliament for Yorkshire if more than 50 per cent of its people as a whole are in favour of it.

We should not grant the Deputy Prime Minister his wish to create a memorial to himself in the form of a huge new layer of bureaucracy, which would waste billions of pounds and achieve so little.

There are far more important issues for the Government to spend its time and taxpayers' money on.

Timothy Kirkhope MEP,

Head of Conservative European team for Yorkshire and Humber,

Collingham,

near Wetherby.

...AS if to slip it through unnoticed the city council's executive, under leader Dave Merrett, has decided to support in our name a referendum in Yorkshire to create an elected regional government, as proposed by John Prescott.

This, even before his own Government has decided what powers and structures such assemblies are to have. Worse still, should a referendum be held, the electorate, when they vote, wouldn't know what they are to be either.

So those of us on the ground, struggling with increasing burdens of council tax, would be asked to sign a blank cheque not just for another round of elections but to create burgeoning new bureaucracy as well.

We are already suffering enough election fatigue and horrendous costs of ever-expanding local government.

Given Mr Prescott's record of bungling incompetence, such expression of blind faith in his integrity is touching.

Regional Assemblies can only work through unitary authorities such as we have in York. Where they don't exist they will have to be created.

This means North Yorkshire County Council, together with its seven district councils, would all have to be abolished and replaced by a number of new unitary authorities on re-drawn boundaries.

Given York's experience of similar administrative metamorphosis seven years ago, the sheer magnitude of such upheaval and its consequent costs beggars belief.

And what would be the end result? The big battalions of urban authorities in West Yorkshire and Humberside would undoubtedly hold sway and dictate where the money goes with York and rural North Yorkshire left to beg, like Lazarus,for crumbs from the table.

Ken Beavan,

Albemarle Road,

York.

...AS someone born and bred in Yorkshire, I applied to attend the one- day "soundings" conference on regional assemblies called Powers to the Regions in York on February 24.

Even though I am not a supporter of the idea of regional government with its extra layers of bureaucracy and greater opportunities for waste and inefficiency, I was prepared to go along and listen to what was on offer.

Imagine my dismay when my application was rejected simply because I had already indicated in a recent poll that I did not see any merit in the idea.

Not only was it rejected outright, but offensive terms such as "loutish and undemocratic behaviour", "extremist", and "deranged" were associated with those who had the temerity to question the idea of an elected regional assembly.

Further, I was then threatened that the police had been kept fully informed of the "'interest shown in our conference by our opponents".

Is this the way to consult? Must all questioning be stifled?

If this sinister approach is how these people behave now when they are unelected, what may we expect if anyone is foolish enough to grant them any real power?

Judith Longman,

Busker Lane,

Scissett,

Huddersfield.

Updated: 10:42 Thursday, February 27, 2003