WITH reference to your article (LET, April 25) on the mature student Imaill Patel, who is fortunate enough to enjoy a whole 57-seater bus placed at his disposal weekly to take him from Blackburn to Ormskirk to enable him to attend college, I am amazed that this is funded entirely by public money.

I am also amazed that he does not need to make this journey and that he was standing as an independent Labour candidate, although I note his sense of humour in that he is writing a book on 'how to save money.'

This raises a number of issues: Would it not have been more cost-effective to provide him with a pass to use the same public transport as the rest of us?

That this is supported by the European Social Fund raises questions about the consequences of voting pro-European.

It concerns me that someone standing for election to a public position has accepted and continues to accept such a dubious use of public monies for his own benefit.

DR DAVID WHITE, Worsthorne, Burnley.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.