LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Letters to the Editor
Want to reply? Read something you feel needs commenting on? Our postbag is open! Please send emails to letters@theblackmorevale.co.uk. When writing, please include your full name and address; we will not print this, but do require it.
We find ourselves in such troubling times of late. What is - for want of a better word - fascinating to me are the different opinions and levels of compassion for the Ukrainian people shown on social media. I am astounded once again at our country and their willingness to help. However there are just some that just don’t get it. My six year old has shown more compassion than a lot of adults I have seen. I have attached a picture of her with the goods she purchased because I am proud.
Proud to have raised a strong and thoughtful young lady. Entirely independently, she put her dolls house up for auction to raise funds to buy toys for the Ukrainian refugee children. As it happened she received donations instead, and raised £150 to buy toys and toiletries with. This is after both she and my son donated £10 each from their birthday money to take bags of food and toiletries to cubs to be sent on. I am so very proud of them both. Sammie Peckover, email
Food not solar THE ongoing conflict in Ukraine has serious implications which will affect the long term future of food prices, farming and food production in Britain. Ukraine exports more than 25 million tonnes of wheat a year; 15% of the world’s wheat exports. It is one of the four major world exporters of grain. It has just been announced by Ukraine that, because of the invasion by Russia, the planting of this year’s grain crop has been delayed, if not totally wiped out in parts. This means there will
be no exports of grain in 2022, as they will need it for their own consumption. It does not take a crystal ball to see that if we do not look to our own resources to feed ourselves, then the future will look very bleak indeed. This then brings in the question as to why thousands of acres of agricultural land, capable of food production, is being proposed for adaptation to solar panel farms? There are a number of proposals for solar panel farms being considered locally affecting excellent agricultural land - the largest of which is the one near
32
Hazelbury Bryan, 190 acres of an industrial power plant across prime farmland in an AONB. If allowed to go ahead, land will be lost for food production for the next 40-plus years. Climate change will only add to the problem; as crop yields fall where droughts are becoming the norm, populations will look to move, with the accompanying conflicts that will ensue as a consequence. David Armitage, Sturminster Newton *** Car Parking Charges I am writing to congratulate Dorset Council on making my working life considerably more difficult. Along with high inflation, record price rises for fuel and an increase in National Insurance and Council Tax, you have almost doubled the cost for me to park my car in the Long Stay car park in Wimborne, which today went up from £3.20 a day to £6.00. Forget about inflation running at 8% or fuel at 40% - you have managed a very profitable 87+% overnight! As this car park, along with many others, appears to be run by a private company, it makes me wonder who Dorset Council is actually working for: residents and council tax payers in Dorset; or the private companies that are making an absolute killing from these exorbitant charges. What, I wonder is your “cut”? Of course this rise will be justified as part of a wider “green” agenda to encourage people out if their cars and on to public transport, but in reality it is nothing of the sort. I cannot use public transport to get to Wimborne from where I live in North Dorset, as the service is functionally useless for work purposes (try it yourself and see). Which means the price rise is simply nothing more than a good, oldfashioned rip-off. As with so many aspects of government,
