MY immediate reaction to learning that Trafford is the country's champion borough is God help the residents of the country's worst.

Those residents who have lived in the area for some years will remember the days when local government was run by smaller councils which took pride in the area.

Those were the days when Altrincham had character, Sale had a decent town centre and Hale and Hale Barns were villages with their own individuality and personality - then along came the reshuffle of county boundaries.

Ever since then it seems that local government, whether Conservative or Labour, has been determined to 'dumb down' the borough until, eventually, everywhere will look the same and there will be hardly an open space in sight.

Altrincham, once termed 'the jewel in Trafford's crown', is now dying on its feet, Sale is even worse and Hale Barns - which the council doesn't seem to acknowledge even exists - is beginning to look like Heathrow Airport's Hounslow.

The only area of south Trafford receiving any attention is Hale village, where a vast amount of money is being spent on turning the main thoroughfare into a traffic jam.

The fact is that Trafford consists of vastly differing areas, from Old Trafford in the north to Hale Barns, and I cannot see how any one large authority can satisfactorily oversee it. How can councillors who represent Urmston or Stretford know what is best for Hale or Altrincham, or vice versa for that matter?

And, it has to be said, now that we have a Labour council the policies of envy are also beginning to play their part.

The whole trouble with local authorities is that they are run by people playing at party politics and their decisions are based not so much on what it best for the borough as on their political colours. Until this system is abolished and we get a cross section of representatives who are really interested in their local area then the electtorate will never be treated properly.

Better still, of course, would be to rid us all of this shambles called Trafford Municipal Borough Council and give us back out smaller but infinitely better district councils.

Arthur Johnson, Barns Place, Hale Barns.

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.