IN response to K Chapman's letter relating to comments attributed by a Chief Insp Spedding about apathy by Harrogate residents (March 28), I am not aware of any comments that Ch Insp Spedding may have made. But I recently had the opportunity to witness first hand the work of the police in Harrogate when they invited me to spend a Friday evening on patrol.

Contrary to what K Chapman suggests, I witnessed high levels of professional policing on the streets of Harrogate by a committed group of officers.

It is easy to take 'shots' at the local police if you are ignorant of the type of work they are confronted with in Harrogate at 3am on a Saturday morning.

While resourcing levels are now adequate, they have only just reached this level and many officers are new to their roles.

I was really impressed.

The real issue in Harrogate rests with a local council too small to have scale to create efficiencies, a reluctance to seek shared services with other local councils to reduce costs, and maybe not the smartest people involved in local government to access these efficiencies for the benefit of council tax payers.

Perhaps the real apathy relates to residents not taking the time to evaluate our locally elected members, and senior non-elected officials, some of whom are clearly not up to the task of running Harrogate.

Chris White,

Kent Road,

Harrogate.

Updated: 10:20 Saturday, April 02, 2005