Letters

Four counties need to form a formal alliance

The Archbishop of York, in a recent newspaper article, advocated greater recognition of England. But in truth England has never had a cultural identity. The features listed by the Archbishop were essentially British rather than English. Alfred’s descendants formed England as a political construct – a conglomerate of the four great Saxon kingdoms of Wessex, Mercia, East Anglia and Northumbria. The cultural identities remained regional. John Prescott’s Regional Authorities partly recognised this. But the South West Region was a collection of leftovers, with no cultural identity between Gloucestershire and Dorset, let alone Cornwall. As we see extensive powers being devolved to the great metropolitan areas with their elected mayors, the rural areas risk getting left out. Individual counties are too small to compete. So we need to recreate the core Wessex. A consortium of Dorset, Devon, Somerset and Wiltshire could be large enough to earn a substantial measure of devolution while remaining a coherent cultural unit – a region not of great cities but of market towns, agriculture and small businesses. We need our county councils and our MPs to get together in a formal alliance which can talk to central government with an authoritative voice for Wessex.

Mike Keatinge Sherborne

n I have become increasingly concerned at the vast amount of untreated ragwort growing in our roadside verges. To my knowledge, ragwort is highly poisonous to animals and not too good for humans either, having always been known as an highly obnoxious 22

Cartoon by Lyndon Wall justsocaricatures .co.uk

weed. It is not only poisonous whilst growing, but cut and lying dead it is a far greater hazard. Surely it is about time the authorities addressed this hazard as a matter of some urgency?

Della Jones MBE

n Your latest edition has an article by Steve Keenan – It failed to say where in your magazine’s area the location (“Ludlow”) was – first rule of journalism! I was mystified – but a quick search revealed the error: the location is LudWELL, near Shaftesbury. Silly sausage! Alan Holwell (near Sherborne) We know! Many of you emailed in about this – it was a slip of the keyboard… Ed Blackmore Vale on July 23 2021 regarding car parking. All of our car park ticket machines should accept cash and we have no plans to remove this payment option from our car parks. As for our plans to standardise car parking payments, we are doing this to ensure a fairer system for all residents regardless of where they live in the county. The introduction of new parking permits will ensure local people can avoid paying the increased parking charges, with higher pricing in tourist hotspots to ensure visitors pay more than Dorset residents. The formation of Dorset Council has saved significant amounts of money, but the financial challenges we face are great, especially in the wake of the pandemic. Social care need and costs continue to grow, making up more than half of our annual budget. Despite this, we’ve begun work on how we can improve our bus services, and bin collections continue to be highly regarded by our residents. I recommend visiting our website to find out more about our plans for car parking charges, as well as how your Council Tax is spent. If there are any further questions, please don’t hesitate to contact the team on parking@ dorsetcouncil.gov.uk. Cllr Ray Bryan Portfolio Holder for Highways, Travel and Environment Dorset Council

n Having read the article about hedgehogs last week, I am concerned about the feeding advice given. Evidence has come to light in recent years about the potential harm of feeding sunflower hearts, peanuts and mealworms, all of which are high in phosphorus, and when fed in the wrong ratio to calcium in their diet can have disastrous effects. If they are routinely being fed high phosphorus foods, the small amount of mealworms, sunflower seeds or peanuts that you are providing could be the difference between a healthy diet and a lethal dose of phosphorus. It should always be remembered that when feeding hedgehogs the aim is to supplement their natural diets, not be to replace their natural diet entirely. If phosphorus levels in food are consistently higher than the calcium content this can result in the body leaching calcium, which is stored in the bones, into the bloodstream to counteract the discrepancy. The resulting calcium deficiency within the bones causes them to become

and provide an authoritative Wessex voice

misshapen, bendy or brittle, causing painful deformities and fractures. This is known as Metabolic Bone Disease (MBD) or hyperparathyroidism. Young hedgehogs fed on a diet with the incorrect calcium/ phosphorus ratio are particularly at risk and are unlikely to live to be healthy adults. It is far better to stick to harmless cat/dog food, either wet food or cat biscuits or hedgehog food, provided that it does not contain the harmful elements which sadly some do. Sue Aldous Licensed Badger Vaccinator Hedgehog Co-ordinator with Dorset Friendly Towns and Villages See valewildlife.co.uk for more information

n Nick Smith is absolutely correct (BVM, August 6). There are few signs that our government is listening to our concerns re traffic in the South West. Likewise, our MPs enjoy toeing the party line rather than push for the real changes that their constituents demand. Having signed us all up to a Climate Emergency they are now fiddling whilst large sections of the world are burning. In similar fashion Dorset Council is still looking at old plans rather than make new ones. Changing light bulbs will not save enough electricity to power a fleet of electric vehicles. Stating that the A350 and the C13 are “main traffic routes in and out of Poole for European lorries” is not correct. Firstly, the Port of Poole is insignificant as a freight port and does not even appear on the GVTs map of important ports. I cannot remember the last time I saw an obvious Seen in Gillingham high street earlier today – thought you might like this, it made me chuckle. I thought I knew all the verses but have never come across this one. Andrew

European lorry around Shaftesbury (A30 or A350) and even by its own admission, prior to Brexit, the freight trade at Poole was dropping. Mostly the HGVs are liveried in the UK and delivering to supermarkets, house building sites or to road construction (Hanson’s being Dorset Council’s main contractor). Secondly, the designated route for HGV’s has long been either to the East or West of the A350 and as shown in the Bristol/Bath to South Coast Study in 2004, the A350 is the least fuel efficient route and therefore should never be adopted as a strategic route for HGVs. I do not believe that any council is able to improve flow. All new road space fills up almost immediately and thus actually increases traffic levels. What I do believe they are capable of is reducing the need to travel by private car but there needs to be the political will to achieve this through better land use planning and a change of mindset (to include public transport, walking and cycling as valid forms of transport). It is possible to get GVT funds to build roads. Just look at the £6.3 million that Gillingham has been given to build 1.3 kilometres for the new houses planned there. That’s £4,853,846 per km. The easiest figures to remember are that 70% of all traffic is local and that over 20% of the population do not have access to a car. Climate Emergency or not, if we want to be able to enjoy where we live we need to think carefully about how we travel. The question “Is this journey really necessary?” from the 1980s is even more relevant today.

Lynne Fish

n I would like to thank the two gentlemen who picked up my husband and carried him to our car after his fall in Morrison car park, Blandford. I took him to the minor injuries unit where the large gash on his nose was treated together with his knee which is badly bruised (but thankfully no broken bones). Thank you once again for your kindness, it was much appreciated.

Maggi Pearson

n Shaftesbury and District Dementia Friendly Community (SDDFC) are starting up a new musical activity group called Melodies Remembered. The group sessions are aimed at supporting people living with memory loss and dementia and their carers and will be both fun and sociable. The group will run on alternate Thursday afternoons at Shaftesbury Football Club, Coppice Street, Shaftesbury. Currently there is very little support for people living with dementia and memory loss in our local Shaftesbury community and we believe that this group will make a valuable contribution to the well-being of this group of people, many of whom have been adversely affected by social isolation resulting from the pandemic Whilst we are actually starting the group on 19th August, we plan to have an 'official open day' on Thursday 16th September at 2pm, when we have invited the Mayor of Shaftesbury to attend. Sally Nutbeem SDDFC Treasurer snutbeem@gmail.com