Dear Editor,

So the rot has finally set in.

First The Natwest Bank goes, then a long-standing and dearly loved shop has gone from the high Street, Out of Asia, and now we are losing Signals, also a beloved and time honoured fixture of Midsomer Norton.

As well as these two significant contributors of Norton's fabric, there is the chance that Tracy who owns Bibliosmia in Holly Court, will have to hand over the reins to someone else.

I hope that B&NES are happy with the pittance they get from parking charges and that it makes up for the lost revenue being brought into Midsomer Norton.

It's not just the parking charges that are decreasing the footfall, what about internet shoppers? Surely it's better to go and see what you are buying rather than randomly clicking items on a impersonal webpage?

I have lived locally for most of my life and I have always enjoyed local shopping, making friends with everyone in the shops and feeling that I'm helping to keep our heritage alive.

Is Midsomer Norton going to end up a ghost town with nothing but charity shops and cafes?

What would be the point of spending all that money on the Town hall and The Island renovations if there isn't anyone to make use of them?

You know what they say, use it or loose it!

Yours in despair,

Dawn Bennett

Westfield, Radstock

Dear Editor,

The dairy industry is horrifying. Female cows are forcibly impregnated in order to produce milk, which is intended for their calves, but is instead taken by humans and packaged up and sold in supermarkets.

When the female cows give birth, the calves are taken away from them, to be farmed for veal or killed. Male calf slaughter is a direct and unavoidable consequence of this cruel industry.

After a few years of relentless milking and pregnancy cycles, these mother cows become exhausted and unprofitable, so they are too sent to slaughter for cheap meat.

Choose compassion, choose vegan.

Alex Harman

Campaign manager at Animal Aid

Dear Editor,

Bowel cancer is the UK’s fourth most common cancer and its second biggest cancer killer. We know that one of the ways we can reduce our risk of developing bowel cancer is by taking part in regular exercise.

This April, for Bowel Cancer Awareness Month, Bowel Cancer UK are encouraging people to do something active every day as part of our ActiveApril campaign.

Whether your readers would like to challenge themselves to reach a fitness goal or get active in their own way, every movement they make in ActiveApril will bring us closer to a future where nobody dies of bowel cancer.

Yours sincerely,

Genevieve Edwards

Chief executive, Bowel Cancer UK

Dear Editor,

Families across Lebanon are being forced to flee their homes as the conflict in the Middle East grows. More than 700,000 people have already left their homes after repeated bombings and evacuation orders. Many towns and cities are now under fire and Lebanon is on the brink of a major humanitarian crisis.

Family homes are being destroyed - people are escaping with almost nothing and taking shelter wherever they can - schools, communal shelters set up by the government, crowded public buildings, or makeshift shelters. Many are already full, and some families have no choice but to sleep outside amid ongoing airstrikes.

At ShelterBox, we’ve launched an urgent fundraising appeal to help fund our response. We’re working with a local organisation and Rotary in Lebanon to support families who have been displaced. Together, we’re preparing to support people with essential items that are urgently needed - things like blankets, mattresses, food containers, solar lights, kitchen sets, and hygiene kits.

We’ve responded in Lebanon before – most recently during the 2024 conflict – and we’re drawing on that experience to support again.

If your readers can support, by sharing our appeal or donating, it would make a real difference to families who have been uprooted from their homes.

Haroon Altaf

Regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, ShelterBox

Energy independence should be part of our national security

A senior politician said: 'We need to be more self-reliant than we have been to date, going further and faster to produce renewable energy here in the UK. There was always going to have to be a shift away from importing gas in order to meet our net zero ambitions by 2050 but this must now happen as a matter of urgency.

It is no longer simply an environmental issue - energy independence should be viewed as part of our national security.' This was not Ed Miliband, following Trump's present ill-planned and illegal war on Iran, but Shadow Chancellor, Mel Stride, talking in 2022 following the energy crisis after Putin's attack on Ukraine.

With present petrol prices rocketing and the threat of our gas and electricity doing the same, the necessity to move to national energy security as fast as possible with the cheapest form of energy - renewables, is even more pressing.

But what does Kemi Badenoch, say? Just like Trump's best fan Nigel Farage, she says we should ditch Net Zero and grant more gas and oil licences in our North Sea waters. These may be 'our' waters but the fast-diminishing supplies of gas and oil in the North Sea are certainly not 'ours'.

They belong to the international companies who sell them on the international wholesale markets for the highest price they can get. Even Shadow Secretary of State for Energy, Clare Coutinho, has said that granting more licences wouldn't bring bills down.

The independent Climate Change Committee (CCC) has just released a report confirming that the cost of achieving Net Zero by 2050 is the equivalent of cost of one single fossil fuel shock such as that Mel Stride related to. The CCC stated that each pound invested in Net Zero will yield between £2 and £4 in benefits.

Nigel Topping, chair of the CCC said: 'In the light of current world events, it's more important than ever for the UK to move away from being reliant on foreign volatile fossil fuels, to clean, domestic, less wasteful energy'.

As Mel Stride so rightly said in 2022, and Ed Miliband has been constantly stressing, we should be 'going further and faster to produce renewable energy here in the UK... It is no longer simply an environmental issue - energy independence should be viewed as part of our national security.'

Mike Baldwin, via email