It is to your paper’s credit that your pages are filled with the ups and downs of the coming changes in local government in Dorset, for which incidentally none of us ever voted.

The embryo Weymouth Town Council and existing Portland Town Council quite understandably want to retain as many things as possible to maximise their income in the vain hope of having a meaningful existence.

They are however up against a new authority which, again understandably, wants to hoover up as much as it can in order to shore up what are like to be rather shaky finances.

I have a feeling that these local government changes will, in the not too distant future, be seen at worst as a fiasco and at best as a diminishing of real local democracy.

From the point of view of Weymouth and Portland, the Dorset Council safely hiding beyond the Ridgeway, is hardly going to see us down here as a priority.

The relatively few local councillors left to represent us are going to have a hard job to ensure Weymouth and Portland issues and concerns are addressed in the maelstrom of matters that are inevitably going to batter the new county authority.

I may be accused of taking a negative view of all this, but apart from the great reforms made by the Victorians, can anyone point to later meddling with local government that has been really successful?

RICHARD SAMWAYS

Albert Terrace, Portland