With regard to the Hotel Verge, surely it is possible to design a building that complements the wonderful Victorian buildings that surround its proposed site. There are examples of modern buildings in the CBD that are sympathetic with and complementary to the streetscape they are situated in. This proposed hotel will never achieve that status and will rank with Henty House, the LINC Library and many others in the CBD as failures of modern planning.

Among my concerns is the proposed pedestrian bridge across the North Esk river from the Silo Hotel to Seaport. The illustrations I have seen look like something that the army would produce in a hurry. We must not let cheap and nasty structures like this one be built when the opportunity exists to create an iconic bridge for our city.

No doubt at some cost developers like Mr Errol Stewart (C.H. Smith site redevelopment) have shown themselves willing to meet with interest groups in an attempt to accommodate as many views as possible. Private developers are not the enemy as it's ultimately up to council to only approve structures that maintain the special Launceston heritage and the Hotel Verge proposal certainly does not fit that criteria.

Sue Balchin. Youngtown.

PERHAPS it is time for us to shudder every time we hear the term "three tiers of government" in Tasmania. We are after all, the people who pay for our overweighted bureaucracy. Is it time for us to ask a few questions in the face of rising taxes and rates etc?  A government elected to manage our resources ought to be evaluating these sometimes curiously dysfunctional instrumentalities rather than presenting them with public money and then taking no interest in how or why they spend it because they are listed as "self-governing.”.

Do we for example need so many councils? Do we actually need any councils? Would we be better off ruled by state government with regional, and perhaps "volunteer", committees actually representing ratepayers, as advisory bodies? Before we look at the question of becoming a Republic we ought to get our own house in order to correct a system that is failing us before we demolish the one that works extremely well.

Len Langan, Longford.

NOW we have been told why the Treasurer wants to take over TasWater. It will speed up Launceston's sewerage system upgrade by three years (Speedy Upgrade, July 20), therefore helping to re-elect three Liberals in Bass at the next state election. Mr Gutwein promises this upgrade is completed in 2022-23 (two elections away), so who will even remember if the date slips by a year or three.

Peter McGlone, Director, Tasmanian Conservation Trust.

GREEN waste bins in the city (The Examiner, July 16). Wonderful. My daughter lives in Sydney and has had a green waste wheelie bin for years, I have often wished for one. This proves beyond doubt that wishes do come true. However, all I have seen, heard and read about composting have been totally opposed to meat of all kinds being placed in compost bins.

Firstly, it does attract rodents, rats etc, and red back spiders also love this type of compost. Secondly, I worry about consuming food from ground with meat particles, think of Mad Cow Disease. We have to be careful our food chain doesn’t become contaminated. Apart from these concerns, bring on the green bins.

Ron Baines, Kings Meadows.