South Cheshire Chronicle letters

Jan 7 2004 Daily Post

ON Boxing Day I attended my first hunt. We gathered at a small country pub just outside Northwich. The police were in attendance and we were very glad of their presence.

Although things passed off peacefully, the air was heavy with menace and many of the hunt supporters made it clear how they would deal with anti-hunt protesters if given a free rein.

People had come from all over Cheshire to express their disgust at the barbaric ritual that was to be carried out in the name of sport, pest control, fun or whatever that week's excuse was.

I won't go into the details of the cruelty that was to unfold. That has been argued and debated by both sides in depth and at length. But I did feel genuine pity for the horses and hounds that were being used just as cynically as the farm workers who were bussed in to 'protect' the huntsmen and women.

You had to ask what were we all doing there in this the third millennium? Is it really necessary in this day and age to make a stand because you believe that killing an animal by tearing it limb from limb is unacceptable? Sadly, it is.

Finally and for the record, we are not all ignorant 'townies'. There is real poverty in parts of the countryside, but the farmers who genuinely need our support are being trampled underfoot by the rich landowners who use them under the banner of the Countryside Alliance.

We know that it can't be right that the gap between what many farmers get for their produce and what we pay at the supermarket still is so wide.

This is the real countryside debate and a vocal minority whose only interest is in preserving their vile practices is smothering it.

BARRY EVANSON (address supplied)

ON Wednesday December 31, I put my wheelie bin out as normal along with some black bin bags due to the excess of the Christmas period.

Along came the refuse collectors and to my amazement left the black bin bags behind, so I rang the council to find out why, as on previous years they had been taken.

I was told that I was on a normal collection day and no excess refuse would be taken. I tried to comment that 90% of households would have extra refuse this time of the year, but to no avail and I filled my wheelie bin again.

I then went to visit my father and told him what had gone on. The refuse collectors were down his street and, like my street, there were black bin bags alongside the wheelie bins and they were being left like ours, until they got to the guys across from my father's, by which time a man from down the street had to come to ask why the bin bags hadn't been taken.

He was fobbed off with the same story as myself. I found out later, they emptied the bins across from my father's and threw in his black bin bags. I was gobsmacked, so I decided to go and challenge the fact that they had done this and left everyone else's.

The refuse collector told me it was because that particular guy had looked after them by giving them pop. I was even more gobsmacked than before and told them it was favouritism. I rang the council again to tell them of what had gone on, also telling them I would be writing to you.

I think, and I'm sure I'm not on my own, it's quite disgusting that with all the council tax we pay at this time of the year normal refuse collections should be abandoned and all refuse should be taken.

You shouldn't have to bribe the refuse collector at any time to take the excess waste.

Also, what about all the black bin bags left behind on the roadside and on the verges?

The council will send out extra vans to pick them up after the dogs and cats and whatever other vermin have torn them open making double work, extra hours and using even more council tax.

Doesn't this act as some kind of discrimination. Don't you think it's a joke?

VERY ANNOYED HOUSEHOLDER Crewe

Editor's note: Have other readers been annoyed by this? Chronicle reporters have noticed the same thing happening in their streets in Crewe yet not in neighbouring Vale Royal.

REGARDING Malkins Bank residents who don't believe the results of the cancer probe, read: A disgruntled few; residents who do not play golf, and hate to see others, many of whom are senior citizens, enjoy this pastime.

The survey carried out at great expense, affecting all parishioners, was given the all-clear.

Now the doubters have to put up or shut up, and that means financing their own survey.

The criticism is unfounded. Wildlife is abundant and the course is now without doubt one of the area's finest.

These same people have no qualms about exercising their animals across the course, which is private property, and designated footpaths for the public.

So, all in all, where have these moaners been for the been for the last 30 years or so, during the excavation and building?

Incidentally I have lived here from the outset, and in comparison am just a newcomer to some.

I have tried in this letter to put the views of locals, and senior members of the club, across fairly and can now settle down for many years of enjoyable golf.

MALKINS BANK RESIDENT (name and address supplied)