Sir,

I would urge readers to vote in the referendum on March 3, but before doing so to look back over the past 10 years at the record of the Assembly.

I am sorry to say that compared to the rest of the UK it has been a very dismal achievement. Education standards are lower and we are spending £600 less per child than England. We have the highest percentage of 16 to 18-year-olds in the UK who are not in education, training or employment. Hospital achievement is lower than any other area in the country. Road building and repair is falling behind and the electrification of the railway line between Swansea and Paddington is not to happen.

At the same time as Wales was calling out for more homes, schools, hospital building, the elected representatives in Cardiff Bay abandoned their existing offices that were quite adequate and built new ones. At what cost?

They said in 1997 that the establishment of the Assembly would cost no more than the Welsh Office, £72 million plus £17 million, but the cost is now over £400 million for the Assembly and Welsh Office combined. They promised us no new buildings and as we know, that promise was reneged upon - Cardiff, Merthyr, Llandudno, Aberystwyth etc. We were told at one time than the Assembly needed 20 additional members to cope with the work, yet in the paper recently we were given the voting record of all the elected members which left a lot to be desired, even as low at 62 per cent.

I will be voting no on March 3 for a better and more properous Wales. The political establishment in Wales is pushing for a constitutional change that will take us a further step towards separation from the United Kingdom. Since devolution, Wales has become the poorest region in the UK. If Wales were to separate from the UK, we would lose the £9.1 billion per annum we receive from UK treasury. To make up the shortfall - for every man, woman and child, the Welsh taxpayer would have to folk out an additional £3,100 every year. This can be summed up in one word - impossible. They are living in Cloud Cuckoo Land.

Sir Eric Howells CBE,

Llanddewi Velfrey.