THE Government's exercise in gauging interest in the idea of holding referendums on regional government has had a good response from the North-west.

The North West Regional Assembly says 2,000 replies were submitted from the region.

Ministers are trying to assess the level of interest in each region in directly-elected regional government. Four hundred responses were received from Yorkshire and Humberside and it has been estimated that more than 500 were sent in from the North-east.

The chairman of the presentunelected North West Regional Assembly, Cllr Azhar Ali, said: "The high level of interest in the soundings process in the North-west sends a strong message to Government.

"Clearly the issue of regional government has generated the largest measure of interest in the North-west and so I believe there should be a referendum to test the views of everyone in the region."

The CBI does not believe a case has been made yet for regional government.