'The motorist is an easy target' - Your Letters: March 3

In reply to 'motorists are an easy target' (26 Feb). 

If the bad guys had to by law have a large clearly visible unique reflective identification plate strapped to their back and front everywhere they went, and if they tried to cover it up they would be stopped and fined £2,000 then maybe the police would have an easy time catching them. 

Same for cyclists and e-scooter riders, who openly break the law knowing it will be pretty impossible to trace them. 

The motorist is an easy target because they are so easy to identify and trace, also because drivers of motor vehicles are said to be destroying the planet with their means of transport they are a special target in these nut zero times. 

Why bother spending time tracking those hard to trace real villains when you can set traps for motorists and let them come to you. Kerching.

Chris Smith, Horsehay

OUR WONDERFUL ENGLISH LANGUAGE

The Great English language has a wonderful way of allowing many words to be dramatically changed by just removing one letter and replacing it with another.

This came to mind after reading a most entertaining letter from Great Uncle Ebenezer Gladstone Steggles, head honcho of the Parish of Much-Wobbling-In-The Marsh in deepest Norfolk. The word parish seems to speak of history, stability and could be considered comforting in these yet again troubled times. But lose the a in parish and insert an e and you have perish, which is where some of our political masters seem to be pushing us, the public, financially. The modern motto of forever paying more for less.

Even Uncle E's domain faced financial scrutiny when it was revealed that the parish was going to underspend its budget by £200, but Uncle E immediately asked local groups to submit bids for the £200. In the end the money was put aside to purchase long term planting projects to brighten local lives. The parish rejected calls for the £200 to go towards help in setting up a nail bar in one of the disused red telephone boxes and the idea from a concept artist to help him transform a piece of countryside into a city, which Uncle E pointed out to the artist is already being done by the government and the planners.

Peter Steggles, Rushbury

WE NEED TO TAKE ON RESPONSIBILITY

Congratulations to Kate Halliday for reminding us that we have a responsibility for where we live and can no longer expect everything to be undertaken by the council.

She says that people are complaining about dirty streets. That’s not surprising since few of us bother to brush up the leaves outside our houses. I am 85 and still find the energy to keep my drive and pavement free of leaves. And whilst on the subject, I'd like to vote for a candidate at the next election who would like to make it illegal to allow hedges to stray outside their house's boundary line on to the pavement making it tricky for pedestrians, particularly those with pushchairs.

Name and address supplied

HELP IS ON OFFER OVER BENEFITS

More than 1 million people aged 66 or over have been skipping meals, according to Age UK with 620,000 pensioners suffering long-term conditions estimated to be missing meals.

At the same time over £5.2 billion of Attendance Allowance lies unclaimed every year.

If you have ever wondered if you could be entitled to the Allowance, Benefitanswers are offering a free check to see if you could qualify. Call 0333 121 2128.

Paul Brennan, Benefit Answers

SPIRALLING COSTS OVER RELIEF ROAD

The revelation that Shropshire's portfolio holders have already spent £39m of taxpayers' money to discover that the North West Relief Road white elephant would cost an unaffordable £215m is yet another shock to the system.

On top of the shock we had the news a few months ago that £95m still had to be raised.

And that figure has now nearly doubled to a £151m shortfall! 

We all know the final bill for such capital projects is always even higher when it comes to a conclusion. 

Local residents in, for instance, the Burnell division will be wondering why their roads are in such a state of disrepair.

They are forced to keep on suffering while millions of pounds of taxpayers’ cash is being wasted on this road to nowhere.

Chris Naylor, All Stretton

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