BT solutions

I AM writing in reply to two letters in the Hereford Times, September 22, 2016. In response to Mrs ES Child of Leominster, and her problems with BT. I am aware of the unacceptable situation in Yarpole and its effect on the residents. I have contacted BT to press for a resolution to the problems caused by their service. I fully appreciate Mrs Childs’ frustrations with this and I wrote to the chief executive of Ofcom, and have been informed that measures have been taken to ensure that all phone and broadband companies provide the service quality expected by their customers. These include, automatic compensation, easier switching of providers and backing the government’s plans for a legal right to good broadband. They will also be imposing stricter performance rules on Openreach, performance tables and coverage checkers.

All of these measures are designed to finally deliver a quality service to us.

In response to Mr Andrew Wood’s letter regarding badger culling. I fear Mr Wood is behind the times but then he does not live here so it is hard for him to understand what is actually happening in Herefordshire.

To suggest that culling does not work when it is among the only effective preventative measures currently available to us is unfortunate, particularly at a time when vaccination is not a viable alternative. There is a global shortage of BCG or TB vaccine. It is the same vaccine used in humans, but badgers require 10 times the human dose and this must be repeated annually for five years.

Until we have a viable alternative, we must take action to protect healthy badgers and the industry upon which so many livelihoods depend. By doing nothing, we are simply being irresponsible.

The government has identified the edge areas, which divide the country between infected and clean badger populations. They used vaccination in the edge areas to provide a barrier to prevent the spreading of infection and in doing so are protecting healthy badgers. The culling is only taking place in infected pilot areas and could produce the scientific evidence required to convince people that TB can be beaten if we do everything in our power. That is why sabotaging the cull will deliver poor science and continue the spread of the disease putting more animals at risk. It is difficult to justify why so called animal-lovers would want to see this disease spread further.

I fully support a vaccine for cattle, but until we leave the European Union it will remain illegal.

I hope readers will look forward to a time when both badgers and cattle are healthy and free from this fatal disease.

BILL WIGGIN MP for North Herefordshire

Charity cash

HEREFORD and District Branch of the Multiple Sclerosis Society would like to thank the citizens of Hereford for their generous donations during our street collection on the morning of September 10.

We collected a total of £352.43.

The money will greatly help local sufferers of MS.

SUE PENN

The Multiple Sclerosis Society Leominster

Herefordshire Circus woe

I WAS sad to see that Jolly’s Circus had come to Kington.  It’s hard to understand why anyone would get pleasure from watching wild animals performing in an unnatural environment with all the noise and bright lights. And having to travel long distances around the country. Hopefully in the not to distant future we will see only human performance circuses. 

MAX BURGESS Moat Way Malvern

Object to plan

A PLANNING application no P162770/F for a gas-fired electricity reserve generator (20 mv, ten 13-metre chimney stacks) to be built within the southern fringes of Madley village is before us. It will be decided by Herefordshire Council on Friday, October 28. I would like to draw public attention to the extraordinary oddity of the whole application. It is made odder by the unfortunate coincidence that the application heading, which would have spelled out exactly what is being applied for, does not seem to function.   The address of Mr Gary Poole, the applicant, is given as STOR 112 Ltd, Street, Somerset, a company incorporated on April 19, 2016. It was on the very same Tuesday in April 2016 that the applicant had acquired his British nationality.  His address at STOR proves to be the address of nine or more other companies, every one newly formed on April 19, 2016.        In Madley’s case the firm gives no telephone, e-mail or website, it has submitted no previous accounts, except for one in January 1900, described as null, nor will it need to supply any accounts for Madley until 19 January 2018. It is fortunate that ‘no charges have been reported against STOR 112 recently’.   The other STOR companies cover a wide range of topics and crop up across the whole country. Usually, a single managing director is named: Mr Xiao Chau Liu in the case of Pharmhealth, the British director  Dr Ahmed El Gawal for a plastics concern.  What is very alarming is that in no case are their technical qualifications for the post spelled out, or their past experience, though here the danger of a gas explosion is evident as well as noise and light pollution over the average four hours a day that the plant is expected to be fired up across the year.

STOR also appear on Google as a Pay As You Trade Finance Company, making cash advances of up to £500,000 repayable out of future profits. In a similar vein they here advertised that ‘you can earn up to £20,000 per 0.5 acres  per annum using low grade or unused land. Why not make Some Money out of it’.

If your readers feel dubious about this application I hope they will express their feelings to Herefordshire Council and that the council will accordingly turn it down.

JOHN HARRISON Stoney Street Madley 

Improve city

AS WE entered the city we were impressed by what we saw.

There was no litter of any kind to be seen. No fag ends, chewing gum or seagull poo, nothing anywhere.

The city was bustling with polite shopkeepers, outstanding public transport and beautiful medieval buildings.

Truly a delight to visit this place, no it was not Hereford, but Krakow in Poland.

Upon our return to Hereford, what a contrast – still an unhealthy looking High Town, what a mess. Burnt-out buildings still an eyesore, the town hall with its entrance fallen off and still the messy streets. The city blighted with vanity projects costing millions, I guess. All digging up for no clear reason to me, except wasting our money, if we have any?

Can the council not heed a basic need for a clean city, buildings repaired, before digging up everything else, with no end in sight. Or are my priorities wrong?

LES WILKINSON Sutton St Nicholas

Logo will help

DEAR Sirs I write in response to the letter from Peter Cocks (Waste of cash – October 6) regarding the council rebrand.

Herefordshire Council’s need to update its logo is just one part of a revised communications strategy, which seeks to help local people feel more involved and informed. This is important – not only due to the major projects taking place in the county, but as we have to prioritise and shape services to focus on those which we have a duty to provide.

The new logo has been prompted by an updated website and a need to improve digital communications to reflect the way people expect to communicate.

I would like to assure Mr Cocks that the new logo has had very little design cost and will actually help us save money on printing costs, as the new version is black and white.

Changing an online logo is a quick and simple process and this will help the council in its digital approach, making it more efficient and effective, as well as providing improved communications. The logo on other assets will change over time, as they are required to be updated. With regard to who can speak on behalf of the council, this has not changed. There was simply a reminder that councillors (or staff) are not able speak on behalf of Herefordshire Council, unless they are an official, identified spokesperson.

Councillors are still able to speak on behalf of their wards. There are processes to observe and respect, which are standard in any organisation or business.

Cllr David Harlow Cabinet member Economy and Corporate services Herefordshire Council

Field rubbish

WHILE the return of horse racing to Hereford is a good thing it’s a shame that the parking field adjacent to racecourse has been left littered with rubbish. Not a good advertisement.

It is ironic that dog owners are expected to clear up after their dogs and yet humans seem to be unable to clear up after themselves.

ANDREA GOODMAN Westfields Hereford

Many thanks!

I WOULD like to express my sincere thanks to all the people who stopped to help when I had a bad fall outside Morrisons petrol station on September 20.

I was so very grateful for their help and also for the help from the ambulance men. I was diagnosed with a dislocated shoulder and a cracked bone but am now on the road to recovery. Many thanks to you all.

Mrs Joan Brigden Leominster

Poo dumped

I OCCASIONALLY go for a run or walk in Credenhill Woods, I notice that people clean up after their dogs but then leave the bag by the path, sometimes even hanging them up on a tree!

Do they think someone collects them? I haven’t noticed this in Haugh Woods yet.

ADRIAN JONES Holmer Hereford 

A clarification

I FIND it very worrying that you don’t check your facts before you print them.

The picture of the hop picking in the Hereford Times of October 6 is in fact a hop-picking machine which strips the hops off the bines. The hops are then taken to a different building to be dried.

JENNIFER SIMON Whitestone

Learn lessons

UNDER ‘Big Advantage’ in last week’s letters your correspondent questions the morality and ethics of Team GB’s Lottery funding, contending that is equivalent to doping our athletes and disadvantaging less well-off nations’ chances for success.

I assume that anything morally and ethnically questionable should be – in most people’s opinions – discontinued.

An alternative is to recognise the outstanding and transformational success Team GB has attained, identify the success factors which led to it beyond initial funding and adapt them to suit other enterprises in the UK, to include businesses.

This will ultimately increase gross national income, of which 0.7 per cent is dispersed as aid to those in less well-off countries purportedly disadvantaged by our questionable morality and ethics. A ‘win-win’, so to speak.

A further option is for an entity such as an NGO to adopt the successful principles and practices of Team GB and adapt them into development strategies for application in less well-off and even poorer countries.

Given time, patience and commitment, there is a fair chance that some recipients might aspire to a their own local equivalent of our own Team GB, and win more medals than us!

Now, wouldn’t that be ethical?

HUGH VERNON Eardisland

Footpath plea

ONE day last week I decided to walk into Kington town from the surgery car park to visit a friend in Kington Court.

As it was a beautiful day I also wanted to find out if the walk was doable.

Crossing the road by the smart traffic lights, walking along the grass verge I soon found it difficult.

Owing to overgrown trees and grass, I had to walk into the busy road several times (not recommended) and was relieved when I reached the footpath near Kington roundabout.

It’s only a ten-minute walk but it’s time for a proper footpath for the residents of Kington to have access to their surgery.

I think this was mooted some years ago.

Would Herefordshire Council use some of the Amey money they won back recently, to provide this much-needed amenity for the pedestrians of Kington?

SALLY HENSHALL Eardisley

Criminal act?

I’VE not been in Eign Gate for a few weeks, but when I went there last week I saw that all of the recently planted Gingko trees had been lopped off just at the height of the tree guards.

These trees were planted at a very considerable cost to the council taxpayers of Hereford with the aim of promoting the use and viability of Eign Gate.

It is a well attested fact that shopping centres landscaped with trees attract greater footfall and hence are more profitable than barren concrete deserts.

However, more to the point is the fact that these trees are protected as a result of being within a conservation area. Unless due notification was given to the council, the mutilation of these trees was a criminal act.

Was the hacking off the tops of these trees approved by the council? If not, it is a straightforward fact that a crime has been committed.

Has the person or persons responsible been identified and prosecuted, and if not why not?

JERRY ROSS Llangarron Ross-on-Wye