SIR,

The idea of trying to force the people of Monmouthshire to learn Welsh through back door tactics won't work, insisting local councils print all information and correspondence in Welsh and English when all residents speak English anyway.

At a cost of £50 per 1,000 words, the unaceptable waste of paper and council taxpayers money that will run into millions, when 91 per cent of the people who live in Monmouthshire do not speak Welsh by choice.

Only nine per cent speak Welsh and English. If this is the way the Welsh Assembly Government is going towards independence, God help us.

Millions spent on bilingual signs that very few people can understand and our children being forced to learn Welsh in schools might boost the Welsh language, but otherwise it is a dying language except in small areas of Wales in Plaid Cymru-held councils.

I think if residents are happy to have situations forced on them by the minority, so be it. But if like me you insist on our democratic right to choose, you had better speak out before it is too late.

How much power are we going to allow this government to have over our lives?

RW Bradley

(Monmouth)