SIR: The closing down of two home and day centres by Bolton Council - one being Stocks Park (the only one in Horwich) with 17 residents (one being 93 years old) due to lack of money, harks back to 1974, when Ted Heath, then PM, took us into the Common Market.

The Common Market is the European Union now, whose Rome and Maastricht Treaties, as they stand, enable (in part) Brussels EU Courts of Law to over-ride those of our Parliament. Plus there's the prospect of using the new EU currency in two years time, which I believe points to less money, fewer bank jobs and poverty in Britain.

Mrs Thatcher sold us down the river, in her misguided dealings with the EU in 1979-1985, causing her later to begin 'rate-capping' and the fiasco of the Poll Tax; losses from which local Government still suffers.

If only Bolton Council had the courage to learn to stand up and fight the Tory Government for money, like the residents of Stocks Park are having to do to exist, with local support. The Government should fight to stop the EU creating a Federation led by Germany and concentrate on bringing more prosperity to Britain, to care for more of our elderly people in need of help.

Mr J Wilkinson,

Fall Birch Road,

Bolton.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.