HAVING read with interest Councillor Peter Clarke's views on the relaxation of Hyndburn Council's dress code (Letters, June 19), although I am not a young adult, but maybe an old-fashioned, experienced adult, I fully endorse the points he makes.

The suggestions made by council leader Ian Ormerod are symptomatic of the levelling down we are now experiencing under New Labour in the morals of society generally, whether in lack of discipline, truancy, loutish behaviour and one could go on.

I was always taught that to become a leader you had to at least maintain standards and try to improve them, but I might be accused of being old-fashioned.

If this proposal is taken to a logical conclusion then why not scrap the town crier's regalia and mayoral robes and give them smart jeans and trainers?

J WARD, Lyndon Avenue, Great Harwood.