Madam,

I have read the letters regarding the Snowdonia National Park and planning issues with interest.

There is a much deeper concern over this extra layer of administration and bureaucracy that we in the northern area of Cambrian News readership are saddled with.

The park boundary stops at Dyfi Bridge. Do your readers further south feel left out?

What we have is an organisation duplicating nearly everything done already by other organisations and quangos. It is staffed by non-elected councillors in the main.

Furthermore to justify its existence, and therefore its funding, it needs to prove itself different to the other organisations, creating artificial conflict.

On the planning side the councillors on the planning committee normally wear their “need for affordable housing” hats but when on park duties insist on slate roofs and stone façades, the most expensive building materials, a blatant conflict of interest.

In these days of austerity, I hold we cannot afford this extra layer of bureaucracy and duplication. In fact do we need the 50-plus councillors on Gwynedd Council and no doubt a similar number in Ceredigion and the other 20-plus local authorities in Wales?

Yours etc,

Edwyn Jones, Brithdir, Dolgellau.

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