In a piece on the BBC Midlands website, relating to the Covid outbreak on a vegetable farm in Mathon, council leader David Hitchiner said we have it contained, these people are not people who travel around the community, they tend to stay where they are.

I don’t know which parallel universe his Herefordshire exists in, but he only has to ask the staff of Tesco or Aldi in Ledbury to find out that workers from the three large fruit farms in the district make up a substantial proportion of the clientele there.

They live and work in an environment where it is very difficult to adequately socially isolate, and they handle food and packaging which will go on sale to the public, so I find it extraordinary that they are not routinely and frequently tested for Covid-19.

These people work hard at an important job that few Brits are prepared to take on, but that doesn’t mean we should turn a blind eye to the risk of their spreading infection in our community.

Nick Meyer

Ledbury