Letters round up (Including ‘Pub should rid menu of product of torture)

ANIMAL RIGHTS

Pub should rid its menu of this cruel product of torture

If Alvin Michaels’ attitude was the norm, we’d still have the slave trade and children would be dying of respiratory infections from working in coal mines (‘It’s Supply and Demand – and the Cruelty Is Debatable’: Pub Director Refuses to Take Foie Gras Off the Menu”, 2 September).

There are few things more gratuitous today than cruelly force-feeding geese and ducks for a fleeting taste of a diseased liver. Contrary to Mr Michaels’ claims, avian experts, veterinarian groups and animal protection organisations from the UK and around the world are united in their condemnation of foie gras.

After an in-depth study of foie gras production, the EU’s Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare (SCAHAW) concluded that “force feeding, as currently practised, is detrimental to the welfare of the birds” and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) stated that the production of “fatty liver” for foie gras “is not a practice that is condoned by FAO.”

Foie gras production – which involves forcing a pipe down a bird’s throat three to four times a day every day for several weeks until his liver swells to up to 10 times its normal size – is so grotesque that it is illegal in Britain.

The Bricklayers Arms should join the growing number of restaurants as well as almost every major department store in the UK, including Selfridges, Harvey Nichols and House of Fraser, and all major supermarkets by ridding its menu of this product of torture.

Ben Williamson

People for the Ethical 
Treatment of Animals (PETA)
Society Building
London

ZIMMER AMNESTY

Trust to blame for crutch generosity

In light of the article 
‘Zimmer amnesty: give back your crutches!’ in last week’s Gazette, some 18 months ago my wife had a knee replacement operation at St Albans Hospital where, upon discharge, she was provided with a walking stick and, subsequently, required to undertake a course of physiotherapy at West Herts Hospital.

On completion of this latter treatment, although my wife offered to return the walking stick, the physiotherapist told her this wasn’t necessary.

At the time we remarked upon the cost to the NHS of such ‘generosity’, a question which has been repeated many times, having consideration to the considerable number of similar walking sticks we have noticed in use, when visiting the town centre.

T Langley

Hemel Hempstead

GOOD SAMARITAN

Kind men helped me after a fall

I suffered a fall near the Cancer Research Shop on Marlowes, at the bottom of Hillfield Road on August 27 at around 11.30am.

When I came to I was being helped by three men, who stayed with me for about half an hour.

I wish to thank them for their patience and general goodness, and I don’t know their names.

Val Finn

Warners End

ROAD SAFETY

Police must put the brakes on speeding

Over the past few months the Gazette has reported road traffic accidents, people rushed to hospital etc. Surely there is a message there for someone?

Accidents don’t just happen, there is a cause! And in most cases it is reckless driving, as sadly recent events that happened in Highfield where a nice young man lost his life go to show.

The police said again in the Gazette a couple of weeks ago that they will be tackling reckless/speeding traffic within the borough.

I expressed my concerns of speeding traffic in Washington Avenue Grovehill estate about a month ago and it is still going on.

Please can somebody do something before the Gazette is reporting another death on our roads.

Michael Wilson

Grovehill

ROAD STANDARDS

Road repairs done by utter cowboys

Like many a poor motorist who has to endure Hertfordshire’s roads I was very pleased when it was announced a few month’s ago that the Water End part of the Leighton Buzzard Road was going to be re-surfaced.

However, I can’t be the only one who has noticed that the cowboys who didthe job managed to leave the existing pot holes.

Also, when the white lines were put down one of these pot holes had a line painted through it!

Does anyone ever check that road contractor’s prepare a job first and more importantly make check’s after the job is done?

Of course they don’t because it’s all paid for from the bottomless pit of tax payer’s money.

Gary Taylor

Address supplied

TOWN FACILITIES

The council simply won’t entertain us

How angry I felt reading Dacorum Borough Council leader Andrew Williams’ letter in The Gazette where he said: 
“I am incredibly excited about our plans for HH town centre and the benefits it will bring.”

Do you ever read read the letters from the residents of HH?

WE NEED A REPLACEMENT PAVILION!

Read Mr Ken Parsell’s letter.

All your council has achieved is to reduce HH to a third rate town.

What people want is good quality entertainment locally.

Please get out of the job and let’s see if we can find someone with more vision.

Shiela Crocker

Hemel Hempstead

ASSISTED DYING

It is vital to discuss end of life care

Compassion in Dying would echo the sentiments of the article “Having control over your own destiny” (Gazette August 20). It is incredibly important for people to discuss, and then record, their preferences for end-of-life care and treatment.

Currently over half of the British public have strong views on what treatment they would or would not want at the end of life, but only four per cent have formally recorded these wishes in a legally binding advance decision.

Compassion in Dying’s mission is that everyone is aware of their rights and that these are respected.

We operate a free information line (0800 999 2434) and we are also the leading provider of free Advance Decisions.

We would ask anyone in Dacorum who wants to find out more about advance decisions, as well as what rights you have under the current law, to contact us. Danielle Hamm

Director
Compassion in Dying

POLITICS

‘Rest assured’? Not with this council

So the Morrisons fiasco has not cost Dacorum taxpayers any money Councillor Williams assures us (Gazette letters August 27) and tells us there was the cost of officer’s time, but fails to say what that amounted to.

I wish I could rest assured by his letter, but in 2004 he promised the beloved Pavilion would be replaced. Ten years later the site remains untouched.

In 2007 Councillor Williams declared his opposition to building on the Green Belt.

The council has now granted permission to develop green belt land west of Hemel Hempstead.

While council officers were negotiating with Morrisons planning permission was being given to Aldi, Morrisons’ rival, to open stores in Hemel Hempstead. It should be no surprise that Morrisons were happy to accept refusal for a petrol station and also refused the offer of an alternative site.

So the collapse of the second regeneration scheme was a self-inflicted injury.

The electorate were also never told how much the collapse of the first regeneration scheme, Waterhouse Square, cost under this disaster prone Conservative council.

Les Taber

Hemel Hempstead

POLITICS

Make sure you use your right to vote

It is about time that we had a mayor who has been elected by the people of Hemel Hempstead,and not someone who is just a Conservative.

The mayor should be elected every time there is a council election and this will happen after the next election when we will have a more democratic council with many UKIP councillors and a government where UKIP will hold the balance of power,and will give the people of our country a referendum on the European Union.

Our member of Parliament Mike Penning said he is against a Federal Europe but that is just what we now have and it will become a dictatorship.

A dictatorship that makes us pay the sum of £55million a day and this money could be used to help the people of this country,

Our hospitals are struggling, three million people in this country are now relying on food banks, even those in work are struggling and finding it hard to cope yet our politicians do not seem to care much about the feelings of ordinary people, they look after themselves and have an ‘I’m alright Jack’ attitude.

I hope that the ordinary people of Hemel Hempstead remember this and use their vote no matter who they vote for just vote. It is one thing they don’t charge you for!

Noel Swinford

Adeyfield

DOG MESS

Clean it up, or don’t have one, SIMPLE!

Do you know what I love? I absolutely love cleaning other people’s dog mess off my shoes on an almost daily basis, it is my favourite thing to do...
What is it with you dog owners in Hemel? Have you been beaten with the silly stick after falling from the tree of idiocy?
Clean up after your own foul smelling mutts! If you can’t be bothered there is a simple remedy... DON’T HAVE ONE!

Gail Linnard

Hemel Hempstead