Retain talent
I WAS delighted to read the news of the funding secured for a new University and Centre for Cyber Security for Herefordshire (HT, March 16). A massive achievement for all those involved!
I can  concur with the view expressed that this will help to retain ‘home grown’ talent in the county.
Many years ago, like many others, my own son had to move away to progress in his career. 
Jonathon was educated at Aylestone High School and the Hereford Technical College (as it was then). His subject was computer science.
He started his career in computer sales, in Hereford, but moved away to gain more advanced qualifications and employment. He then worked in Paris, on computer robotics for the Ariane Rocket followed by a spell in Germany at Deutsche Bank. 
His most interesting job was in Amsterdam, working for ING bank after is had bought Barings Bank for £1, following  its collapse due to a ‘Rogue Trader’, as depicted in the film of that name. 
Jon worked in a team to design systems to prevent such an event happening again. He has since been working, in a senior capacity, on computer software for banks in London’s financial centre  at Canary Wharf. 
Jon is now in his 50s and is talking about returning, with his wife and children. to his extended family in Herefordshire. 
We will have to see whether this will be for new employment or retirement. 
He says that the increasing pace of change, in his profession, doesn’t make things any easier. I joke that the new Centre of Cyber Security will need someone to make the coffee!
RICHARD BRADBURY
Much Cowarne
 
Simple option
THE simple response to your last week’s Comment (‘City university plan is perfect in all but name’) must surely, I suggest, be to call our university ‘Hereford University of Technology’; short title: ‘hutech’. 
Or will those responsible find a better option?
DAVID WYLLIE
Hereford

Great evening
I HAVE spent a wonderful evening at the Courtyard where ‘The Yeoman of the Guard’ is this year’s show for our own Gilbert and Sullivan society.
One of the most popular G&S operettas, it was performed in all its glory.
It would be wrong to single out any of the cast as in this great production, everyone onstage really was involved.
The excellent set was used very cleverly and the orchestra was up to its usual high standard. Praise must go to all involved – backstage, front of house, rehearsal pianists and rehearsal tea ladies.
Well done everyone, I may be slightly biased but all your hard work has certainly paid off.
J W Mokler
Former member and one-time chairman
Hereford G&S Society
 
Bed-less risk
Mr Myers’ letter, published by you on March 16, accuses me of irresponsibility and opportunism. I would argue that it is in fact he and his Tory colleagues who have behaved in an irresponsible, opportunistic and underhand manner.
The NHS draft Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP) was published to enable residents to respond to it. To do this effectively they need to know what is in it. I have read it from cover to cover and was so concerned by some of the suggestions made I felt it my duty to draw attention to them. I was spurred on to stand in the forthcoming by-election as it would give me a greater platform to make the case for keeping beds at Ross Community Hospital.
I am fully supportive of the aims of the draft STP for “better clinical outcomes and improved independence” for patients. Who wouldn’t be! It is how these are achieved that needs to be discussed.
There are three community hospitals (Bromyard, Leominster and Ross) in Herefordshire that, taken together, have 97 community beds. None of them is named in the draft plan. Ross Community Hospital has 34 beds. Mr Myers quotes page 60 of the plan that shows a potential reduction of 62% of the community hospital beds. i.e. a cut of 60 beds. Page 36 of the draft plan suggests that some community hospitals may become bed-less or have the number of community beds reduced. While there is a much needed increase in acute beds overall the plan states there is a potential 26 bed reduction in the total number of beds (acute and community) across Herefordshire. There is no evidence that the demand for community beds will reduce by 62% over the next five years. 
By removing these beds, there is a risk of increases to ‘bed blocking’ and the increased transfer of patients to A&E because the community bed option has been removed from both the Wye Valley Trust bed managers and from local Primary Care GPs.
My question to Mr Myers would be why would the local Conservative Party do everything it could to try and shut down debate on the draft STP? Could it be because there is a by-election coming up in Ross?
Your readers may be interested to note that in December Ross Town Council voted unanimously to oppose any bed cuts to the Ross Community Hospital and respond to the draft STP but at its March meeting Tory town councillors, with the mayor’s casting vote, blocked sending any response. Were the Tory town councillors being irresponsible, according to Mr Myers’ criteria, in December when they seconded and supported the motion? Or opportunist in March because of the Ross by-election?
These actions by Mr Myers and his friends simply confirm my wise decision to leave the Tory party in 2014 and join the Liberal Democrats who always selflessly work hard for their local communities for the benefit of all.
Julian Utting
Ross on Wye

Big thank you
FOLLOWING a recent accident, I would like to say a big thank you for the care and attention I received from the Paramedics, A & E, right through to Red Brook Ward and not forgetting doctors and staff at Alton Street Surgery.
Thank you all once again.
Robert Lewis
Brampton Abbotts

Terrible roads
AS an avid reader of the Hereford Times and over the years having seen changes to decisions made by the power of the press, I wonder if it is possible to get our council moving to repair / resurface our terrible roads. 
I work in Brecon, travelling from Hereford five days a week and the difference between the quality of the roads in Powys compared to Hereford is nothing short of remarkable. 
Powys is a larger county than Herefordshire and has less population but they do know how to look after their roads. 
It might well be because their authority do not keep spending millions on moving offices.
There are five main roads out of Hereford and every one of those requires attention, in fact, add to that every road in the county.
Have highways finally thrown in the towel? Proof of the pudding is readily available as you drive into Hay-on-Wye from Bredwardine.
Just before you enter Wales at Cusop, the road surface on the Hereford side has almost disintegrated and nothing seems to be done about it. 
Now the council has the nerve to increase our community charge by 3.9% - is some of that money going to be spent on our road network? 
The roads past Wiggins and the road by the Copper Kettle at the bottom of Aylestone Hill are further evidence of a council who cannot manage their budget to allow enough money for road repairs.
Please can our local newspaper do something to shame our council into action and stop them from wasting our money, which from an outsider’s view, they manage to do quite successfully, and start to repair our roads.
NORMAN TARBATH 
Bodenham

Misanthropic
NOTHING brings out the misanthrope like a mass public event and there is nowhere better to be misanthropic than Cheltenham and Hereford Racecourses where drunken Irishmen, posturing corporate ninnies and cackling hags stand with a microwaved vol au vent in one hand and a glass of indifferent wine in the other watching creatures being beaten with sticks to run in a circle.
My head of department last year celebrated this cultural triumph with an “All users” email offering everyone a bacon sarnie. 
I feel he could at least have stayed on theme by offering a horse burger to make use of the seven that perished.
AMANDA MARTIN
Pine Grove 
Hereford

Rich benefit
A WEEK after presenting his budget Chancellor Philip Hammond made a humiliating U-Turn on the only stand-out item. 
Surely other senior Tories saw the proposed increase in National Insurance for the self-employed beforehand and remembered their manifesto promise to keep NI and income tax rates unchanged? 
Where this leaves the £2bn promised for social care it was to fund is unexplained. 
Whilst major NI changes for the self-employed have been kicked into touch the abolition of class 2 contributions goes ahead. 
The real challenge should be to take on those ‘employers’ who routinely use bogus ‘self-employment’ to avoid paying their share of NI payments and worker’s benefits.
Post-delivery Tory divisions aside, the budget was a bland continuation of the same. Cuts, a.k.a. austerity, continue as they attempt to shrink the ‘size of the state’ to pre-war levels regardless of the damage done to people’s lives and the fabric of society.
Alongside continued handouts to the wealthy and powerful through (previously announced) cuts in corporation tax and tweaking of inheritance tax rules the ‘Just About Managing’ will be worse off as all in-work benefits continue to be frozen. 
They, and the disabled, will lose money as they are transferred to Universal Credit and PIP. 
Rises in income-tax thresholds do nothing for part-time workers and give most to the better off. 
The crisis in social care (some of which has featured in your pages and also includes the Brandon trust and local services for adults with learning disabilities) was inadequately addressed. 
Not even mentioning the huge funding problems in the NHS represents jaw-dropping complacency after this winter’s high-profile problems.
A commitment to technical education is welcome but the money is paltry considering the extreme under-funding of FE over the last seven years. 
Less welcome is Theresa’s ‘vanity project’ of new grammar schools which are likely to divert money from the rest of education, particularly if delivered through the extremely expensive route of more ‘free’ schools.
So in the fifth-richest nation of the world our government continues to claim that we cannot afford decent services, roads and railways as it pursues its ideological determination to shift wealth and influence from the poor to the rich.
Anna Coda
Chairman
Hereford and S Herefordshire Labour Party
Peterchurch

Not my views
On March 17, I saw the letter “Other Targets” by Ian McCulloch. 
I am one of the people he spoke to at the rally, and I am bemused by his misrepresentation of my views. 
I protest against our governments often: I despise its policies which have cut our NHS and education system to the bone, and have led to the latest council tax rise in our county, whilst simultaneously giving large tax cuts to multinational companies and rich individuals. 
I am a very much against the aggressive foreign policy our governments, Tory and Labour have followed for decades. 
I am especially critical of the recent aggression against Russia, and support for the undemocratic coup in Ukraine, leading to the rise of Neo-Nazism in Ukraine. 
I am a vocal advocate against the supplying of arms to Saudi Arabia, a state where British support was essential in its creation.
Implying I, via my supposed inaction, support paedophilia is ridiculous from someone who champions the “Pizza Gate” story, invented by Milo Yiannopoulos, an actual self-admitted paedophile supporter. 
I would appreciate if you didn’t attempt to attack my views in the local newspaper, especially when you completely misrepresent them.
James Mclelland
Clarksons Lane
Hereford

Church puzzle
PUTLEY Church has a puzzle. 
We are doing quite a bit of housekeeping; Ross on Wye Fine Arts Society is undertaking the Church Recording, unearthing papers dating back to the Poor Law in the late 1700s amongst other things. 
We have taken the opportunity to tidy things up and repair bits and bobs.
One such bit and bob is a casket given, we think, by the Riley Family, in 1877 to hold the chalice and paten. 
The box, now in the care of the restorer Andrew Williams at Leighton Court, presents an unexpected challenge. 
In deconstructing the box, before restoration, Andrew revealed the maker’s mark. 
The mark is “Thomas ****** Cabinet Maker, 1877, Hereford”. 
The challenge is Thomas who? 
His surname is indecipherable, although it might begin with the letter H. 
Have any of your erudite readers any guidance as to who is our Thomas? 
We suspect he was a cabinet maker of some renown in Hereford; the Riley family employed some of the best London craftsmen when they restored our church in the same period.
Tim Beaumont
Putley
Ledbury 
tim.beaumont@btinternet.com

I’m reassured
IT was so reassuring to see from your report of the rescue of a woman from Newton Farm with the building of a ramp, that our local ambulance service is so well resourced and managed that they were able to allocate five ambulances to the incident.
Furthermore, should a similar, but rather more urgent rescue be needed, my farmer neighbour would be quite happy to pop over with his long-reach loader.
JAMES BOYCE
Bosbury