WE, in Hereford, have just had a visit from the regional judges of Britain in Bloom and I cannot praise the workforce of Balfour Beatty enough.

Their men did a great job to ensure our day went well. It takes 3.5 hours to complete the judges’ tour and it went without a hitch.

As a company, Balfour do have a serious problem as their budget has been slashed and this has affected their labour force – but on the two days prior to judging they had even litter-picked the route.

However, I do have a complaint against the general public.

I arranged for a driver with two lady passengers to go on ahead of the judges’ city tour, and they filled over five large black sacks, one being a stinking bag of fly tipping, left at the end of Broomy Hill.

The cost of this litter from just bits of paper, sandwich containers, drink cans, bottles or anything we don’t want, is hundreds of thousands of pounds every year and the majority of us are guilty.

We have in Hereford city some excellent community groups who are doing a grand job and I hope they will help start spreading the word. There are many ways you can help your community so we have got to get back that old wartime spirit of working together to make our world a better place.

Herefordshire relies on tourism and long grass does not help, so the following remarks are directed at our councillors.

I agree the wild flowers are great but the verges and signs must be kept clear and the cutting of grass in parkland areas only three times a year is just madness.

By leaving it you change the texture of the grasses so that they become coarse and uncomfortable to sit on, not to mention the fact you need different machinery to cut longer grass,.

And dog mess cannot be seen and this can have serious health risks for children playing in the long grass.

So we are all in this together, we can all help, the council needs that help, let ‘s give it a try.

TREVOR SWINDELLS, Chairman, Hereford in Bloom.