'Government's funding to fix potholes is unfair' - Your Letters: January 11

The funding gulf between the Metro boroughs and the Shires is made clear by the Government's funding to fix potholes. The West Midlands will receive over £52m for the year 2025-26 to add to the already allocated £119m.

Shropshire will get £9m added to the £24.5m already allocated. Presumably, the Government believes the pothole problem in the 'rural idyll' of Shropshire isn't that great… well come and find out!

In the same way, Shropshire's allocation of £4.5m to kickstart the Government's 'Bus Revolution' doesn't even keep existing services running, without cuts.

Many services in the West Midlands will be able to hold the £2 maximum single fare and even offer free fares on some routes in the evening lead-up to Christmas, helping to keep traffic off the roads and allowing people to have a drink without driving.

Meanwhile new rail routes and stations are in progress as Shropshire's mothballed railways disappear into the undergrowth.

And we thought things would change under the new regime. Sadly, it's much of the same: put money where the votes are.

M Crump, Bridgnorth

MONEY SHOULD IMPROVE RIVERS

As water bill prices for the public rise, I really do hope Severn Trent Water boss Liv Garfield and other company top brass won't receive a bonus this year while the River Severn continues to suffer from so much sewage overflow pollution, including when its not raining.

It worries me deeply that STW shareholders reportedly paying her bonus, as STW defensively emphasises, provides a structural steerage "incentivising" her to put their interests above the needs of the suffering River Severn and its wildlife. Is that appropriate when the river ecosystem of fish, insects and birds can't whisper in her ear equally? It seems a systemic distortion producing an unlevel moral playing field.

Why should shareholders get such priority access to motivating the top bod their way? Do we really want the biggest shareholders, the Qatar Investment Authority, and Lazard Asset Management, both with unimaginable wealth already, calling the shots about where discretionary money goes while the basics like data transmitters that work all the time on Shrewsbury sewage sensor stations are not in place? Surely STW's planned 4.5 per cent dividend push out would be better spent in the infrastructure improvement pot instead. Money should be used to protect our rivers in Shropshire and the West Midlands with more reliable equipment.

How can we ask the rich American and Arab bankers to hand their planned gains back while the River Severn continues to suffer?

Rev Paul Cawthorne, Save Our Severn chair

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