TIMES have changed and things have to change for progression. So says Trystam Hawkins in "No Going Back on Boundaries" (Letters, December 23).

These might have dropped from the lips of St Tony himself - the fallacy that "modernising" inevitably means improving. One must still ask two pertinent questions: Why? And: Has any noticeable improvement in fact been brought about?

The Redcliffe-Maud report acknowledged that it could find no evidence of inefficiency in the old Lancashire, where the county council administered a population far larger than that of so-called Greater Manchester, even with the 18 county boroughs, such as Bolton, taken out!

If people are so enamoured of the present set-up and won over by its efficiency, why is there so much disgruntlement more than 30 years later?

Andrew Bowyer

Followfield Way

Atherton