THANK you for highlighting the importance to ratepayers of the latest “consultation”.

We are privileged in Herefordshire in having a truly local paper to keep us informed and help give us a voice. I have written before concerning the ineffectiveness of such costly exercises – to you and directly to officers and councillors involved.

This is the same council that has failed to use its Herefordshire Matters publication to give us details of plans at the proper stage for the public’s voice to be heard; or the financial details that would allow proper comment and alert us to what was in store.

It is the same council that has made faulty judgements with costly court cases and verdicts against it.

The same council that condemns a concerned councillor for asking pertinent questions.

Above all, this is the council that voted extra allowances to councillors when officers have had a pay freeze – as recently as December and when the crisis was already clear.

In November I wrote to you concerned about the standard of the cabinet meeting chaired by council leader John Jarvis where an extra £500,000 for developer Stanhope was voted through.

We are all involved in this crisis.

But this consultation will be a facesaving exercise if full financial details and existing contracts with any room to manoeuvre cannot be examined. It is a disgrace that people should be barred from crucial information.

Don’t ask us for opinions that cannot be based on full knowledge and reasoned argument.

We have so much to be proud of in Herefordshire – the most significant being the many stalwart citizens who give voluntary time and effort. Look at how well run the Queen’s visit was and where so many Herefordshire community efforts had pride of place.

I suggest the spirit and skills are there. Other communities can pull out of calamities by making the most of resources. It isn’t done by a paper exercise.

For a start, could each councillor accept some responsibility? Each should examine whether they paid sufficient attention to proposals.

Perhaps, with a clearer understanding of exactly what the present position is, each could arrange a local meeting for public debate?

BARBARA FERRIS, Dinedor, Herefordshire.