THE Government has published its proposals for elected Regional Assemblies in England.

Here this could mean a regional assembly covering an area including Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Dorset, Somerset and all the area that used to be in Avon plus Devon and Cornwall. The new body would take over many of the powers currently reserved to Westminster.

The plan should be welcomed as a means of devolving power away from London, but there are a number of serious snags.

First of all the government insists that, in order to get a directly elected assembly, one layer at least of existing local government must be sacrificed.

It could be the county councils which are made to disappear. There is absolutely no need to do away with one layer of elected local government. The regional assembly should be taking over all the functions currently run by faceless, unelected quangos. The bodies that exist without any reference to us the voters already spend more in our region than all the elected local government put together.

The proposals call for elected regional assemblies to have only 25 to 35 members, elected by the 'additional member system' used in the Scottish and Welsh Assemblies.

If the county councils are done away with then we will be replacing some 350 elected councillors with a mere 35.

'Topping up' the votes to make the result more proportional will also be difficult to get right with such a small number of people being elected. A body that is going to represent people living between Tewkesbury and the Scilly Isles should have at least 150 to 200 members. Tony Blair and John Prescott have fudged the issue of exactly which powers the new assemblies will take and which will be retained by Westminster.

There is also the question of 'variable geography'. Currently the Government thinking is that the regions should be the same as the current Government regions and broadly the same as the European Parliamentary constituencies.

That gives a huge area in the west with little real common interest. Perhaps a Wessex region consisting of Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Dorset (with a separate assembly for all of Bristol and Bath) might have more appeal.

The Government's plan deserves one-and-a-half cheers only. One cheer for the attempt to break the mould of over-centralised government. Half a cheer for giving us all the right to choose whether we want a directly elected assembly or not. No cheers for threatening to take away one tier of elected government. No cheers for getting the arithmetic wrong about the number of councillors which would reduce democratic accountability.

JOHN THOMSON

Friday Lane

Charlton St Peter