Get ready for a turbine invasion

WAKE up, Herefordshire!

An army of wind turbines may soon be marching across our countryside.

Planning permission has been applied to erect a very large (75 metres) wind turbine on the outskirts of Pencombe, near Bromyard.

This will be visible for many miles around. Wind turbines are more efficient if there are many or them.

If the planning department grant permission for the turbine in Pencombe the floodgates will be open for entrepreneurs throughout the county to erect many more. Be warned, Herefordshire.

ROY AND JACKIE DAY Pencombe

‘No’ to DIY grass cutting

ONE of our neighbours in Dewpond Close in Hereford recently contacted Cllr Polly Andrews to find out when the green was going to be cut.

The councillor informed her that the next cut would be in August, however, it could be cut in two weeks if we all agreed to keep it down afterwards.

We declined her offer due to the fact that the area belongs to the council, not us, and also for health and safety considerations.

When the verges on Roman Road were cut in May, the grass area in Dewpond Close was always cut as well, but not this time.

Hence we have thistles nearly 5ft high. If it is cut (in two weeks) then the next cut will be in November.

Three cuts a year may now be the norm with Herefordshire Council but at least they should cut it during the growing season.

I wonder if our councillors would like this abomination outside their houses. I doubt it.

BILL BROWN Dewpond Close, Hereford

Kind visitor with clippers

I HAVE to write in support of the letters from Judy Seymour and Helen Nicholls (Positive result for these habitats and wildlife, Letters, June 12).

Wildlife, so rampant in Herefordshire and life- enhancing, needs these natural highways between coppices and fields to move around and feed.

If, however, as a result, road signs are obscured, then I personally have stopped my car and, using clippers, have removed vegetation to render the signage safe. Both matters therefore addressed at no cost to the council.

Little time to me, a frequent visitor to the county and Hereford on business and pleasure.

As your correspondents say, the vegetation will eventually, between maybe one or two cuts, or after seeding, regrow.

CHRISTOPHER SHORT Barry, South Wales

Not easy to be proud?

IT was good to see the photograph of the German visitors from our twin town of Dillenburg being shown around the Old Market by the mayor, Cllr Len Tawn (Hereford Times, June 5).

Cllr Tawn gives every impression of being proud of the development. This can’t have been easy for him since he and his ‘It’s Our County’ colleagues have used every way they can think of to stop, delay or cancel the project since it was in its planning stages.

DAVID FLEET Eign Road, Hereford

RIP Aboo

MANY news items about Hereford United, but not one mention about Ken Edwards (Aboo) who passed away recently.

‘Ab’ was a Scout leader at Holmer Scouts for many years. He was a truly dedicated person in his love of the Scout movement and was a great inspiration to many Hereford boys in the late 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.

Although many of your readers will never have heard of him, there are many ‘old Scouts’ not only from Holmer, but all the other troops who will.

From me, and I would like to think many more old Scouts, thanks, Ab. RIP.

PETER WATTS Hope-under-Dinmore

MS thanks

MAY I, through your pages, take this opportunity to thank some of our local groups who support us from time to time.

Currently, ladies from Hereford Inner Wheel support us with practical assistance at our monthly lunches. Hereford Tangent have just donated £500 to our funds, and we have received help in the past from the Lions, Round Table, 41 Club and both Hereford Rotary clubs.

Whether it is financial support, giving of time, or just simple things such as borrowing a minibus, their help makes it just a little bit easier to look after our members who are affected by Multiple Sclerosis.

Once again, many thanks.

BARRY G CLARK Chairman, Hereford and District MS Society

Letter shock

I JUST have to write in response to the letter in last week’s Hereford Times entitled ‘Fatal Crash Terminology’.

What total insensitivity has been shown by the writer of this letter. Does it really matter about the terminology of the reporting of this tragic accident? Does this person not understand that a family have lost their beloved wife/sister/cousin and friend?

I think this letter was crass in the extreme and I am very surprised at the Hereford Times for printing it.

NAME SUPPLIED Hereford

Trilling lark ascending

AN interesting side-effect to the cut-backs to grass mowing has been seen and heard in Belmont.

I have recently been hearing a skylark trilling away close to my home in the city outskirts. It must been on the un-cut rough grass nearby.

And today I got very excited as I saw a beautiful bee orchid flowering it’s heart out in amongst the un- mown grass and weeds.

I can find no mention of bee orchids seen in this county before (they usually stick to the coast and chalky soils), is this a first?

Thank you council for making my local environment so wonderful!

AMANDA COTTAM Dorchester Way, Belmont, Hereford

We will soon be living in a concrete jungle...

IN support of last week’s letter from Janet Srodzinski objecting to the proposed poultry units opposite her house at Kington, it must be said that all of the people of Herefordshire must unite against these monstrosities.

Herefordshire Council states that it has a duty to manage the development and use of land and buildings within the county and the aims of the planning service are to help protect the amenity and environment.This is clearly not being carried out and so it remains for the people do the council’s job for them.

It has permitted 30 units in the past 12 months notwithstanding the fact that this county is one of the smallest in the country and already has the largest percentage of chicken sheds.

A four-shed unit has the potential to create 152 HGV lorries thundering around on inadequate roads which are in a dreadful state of repair.

Our countryside is slowly being swallowed up by these units which take up at least two acres of land per unit. We will soon be living in a concrete jungle.

Chickens are fed on soymeal to promote rapid growth – the bulk of non- GM soy is imported from Brazil where rainforests are being destroyed to produce the crop.

Wood is also being used as a fuel for biomass boilers to keep the chickens warm in winter – what is happening to all our woodland? This factory process is just not sustainable in this county.

Each broiler unit produces two tonnes of waste every d a y.

I am sure everyone is aware of the stench created when cleaning out time arrives and this noxious substance is thrown on to the fields.

Each unit is said to create the equivalent of half a full-time job and this is unlikely to be filled by a local resident. Cargills’ factory in Hereford is expanding but this is to make the process more mechanised which will not necessarily provide more employment for residents. Come on, people of Herefordshire – it is time to unite and act now and save our county from this steady invasion of chicken sheds which do nothing to enhance our countryside or promote our fragile tourist economy.

GAIL LEWIS Trenewydd Brilley

They get the loot, we get the pain

JUST a little note to let your readers know Cargill, that well-known American multinational, is still pushing to foist a chicken farm on the good people of north Herefordshire between Kington and Lyonshall.

The previous application was quashed but in no way will that stop them, so a new one is going in.

Lest we forget ,the people back in the US of A want to pack their coffers with gold and the only way they can do that is to make their Herefordshire assets sweat.

Meanwhile, we pick up the smell and traffic and wreck our cars on the potholes their trucks create. In other words, they get the loot and we get the pain.

What do we have to do to stop this? Are these planning applications churned out on a production line?

MARK BALCOMBE Bradnor, Kington

So grateful for Deb’s help

MAY I say a big thank you to the manager of Sainsbury’s fuel station in Hereford for her assistance and sensitivity to the way she dealt with my predicament when I broke down on her forecourt in my motobility car last Saturday afternoon?

Well done, Debs.

SARALA WOODWARD Bodenham

Worries over 1,500 homes

I DON’T know why Holmer should get all excited about getting 460 houses as a ‘present’ from Herefordshire Council.

Leominster is to get 1,500 houses on a greenfield site, with no jobs for the 3,500 people to go to in their 300 extra motor cars.

ROBERT OLIVER Godiva Road, Leominster

Need for solutions

YOUR new View from Westminster column will apparently be alternating ones by our two Tory MPS.

Until now they have had to write letters in the paper, along with everyone else.

Now that we are within one year of a general election, these columns by our two Tory MPs will become a mixture of fact, fiction and Tory propaganda.

I suggest that their next columns detail the actual cut in funding by the government to Herefordshire Council and their detailed plan to solve the ongoing debt carried by the County Hospital and funding for the five-year plan for this excellent hospital.

We all agree that Herefordshire needs higher wages, a credible long-term economic plan, plus more affordable houses relative to real local incomes.

Our MPs, like their government, are good at stating the problems; they never state the remedies.

ROY WATTS Bells Orchard, Almeley

In hospital on D Day

ON looking through old papers, I found a book on life in hospitals etc since 1937.

It’s 70 years since the war finished. I was in Hereford General Hospital the year of the D Day invasion. On one day we watched from the window as wounded troops were brought in.

Two rows of our beds were put down the centre of another ward and the nurses had four lines of us to look after. Troops were put on the ward’s balcony.

Dr Schoffield and his team were in surgery for over 45 hours patching them up.

Most of the nurses had boyfriends or husbands taking part in D Day, but went on smiling. How many are still alive?

It’s a shame the general was sold off as it was a lovely hospital by the river.

P BALDWIN Danford Villas, Hartpury

Great care at County

I AM writing in praise of Hereford County Hospital. I was admitted for a few days recently and was treated with kindness, respect and great care.

All the staff were the same, and spoke directly to me, knowing I am slightly deaf, and helped me in and out of bed at all hours of the night, and the food was excellent. I enjoyed every meal, and came home feeling great.

I would never be worried if I had to go in again.

Many thanks to the staff on Frome Ward.

JOAN WILCE Bromyard Road, Ledbury