Dear Editor,

Through your letters’ page we’d like to thank everyone who has been in touch with us this Summer with their concerns about the closure of NatWest bank in Midsomer Norton. It’s been one of the top issues that Peasedown St John residents have contacted us about.

Keeping bank branches open and banking services accessible is essential. Banks continue to provide a pivotal role for most people living in society, whatever their age and irrespective of the services they use.

High Street banking isn’t just for those people who don’t use online services, or who struggle to manage their finances via their mobile apps, laptops or desktops at home. The benefit of having a bank open on the High Street still appeals to most people – they provide a personal, reliable and trusted service and allow us to talk to somebody, face-to-face, with our financial concerns and questions.

They even know most of their customers by name!

We have written to NatWest with our concerns about the closure of their Midsomer Norton branch and have asked what banking services could be opened in the area (such as a banking hub) so residents can continue to access the services they so heavily rely on.

We’ll be keeping Peasedown residents updated via our monthly e-newsletter. Anyone who’d like to subscribe can email [email protected]

Yours,

Cllr Karen Walker and Cllr Gavin Heathcote

Peasedown St John

Dear Editor,

Every time I walk past the river from outside Somervale School and the One Stop shop I look in dismay at the condition of this once lovely feature of our town.

So much rubbish and unwanted growth as well as a small trickle of water does nothing to enhance the area. Perhaps if so much money had not been spent unwisely on the Island there would be enough to dredge and clear this part of the river.

No self respecting duck or moorhen to be seen here now when there were young to see in days gone by.

The council must realise that every part of the infrastructure need maintaining and no such work has been undertaken with regard to this stretch of the river for a long time.

Let us hope that some work will be carried out soon or the river will be completely obscured by neglect.

Best wishes,

Lucy Edwards

Midsomer Norton

Can we please keep the letters section to local issues? We really don't need a discourse on global politics taking up half the letters page of our local paper thanks J Sokol and others.

And on that matter, what exactly have the so called improvements at the top of Church Lane in Midsomer Norton achieved?

All it has done is to make the bottle neck for traffic worse. Seemingly another waste of taxpayer's money to solve a problem that didn't exist.

Gary Walker

Midsomer Norton

Dear Editor

I am still trying to grasp the relevance of Marilyn Monroe to the subject of Nigel Farage’s fixation with Donald Trump!

This was included in Jim Sokol’s wide-ranging defence of Farage’s preference for the way America is run today (Letters, July 30). He agrees that Trump is “a felon” but says the Americans voted him into office “and it’s not for us…..to question them”. It’s a pity that Trump and Vance don’t follow that advice when questioning the way the UK is governed - derogatory remarks on Free Speech and wind turbines for example. Are these not “problems” for us to sort out? Today, I hear Trump has sacked the person in charge of issuing employment statistics in the U.S. claiming they are false (unflattering to him) with no details of why that is so. Ghislaine Maxwell has suddenly been moved to a “nicer” prison….why? Trump also ignores the Constitution on a daily basis - and Farage admires him!

The assumption that I may be associated with the Conservative Party is not wrong but I am not blind to the shortcomings of the last administration. Farage is an excellent communicator but there is no evidence that he has ever “run” anything. I repeat: two of his six MPs are suspended. If elected to government who will fill senior Cabinet roles? Answer: unknowns with zero experience of Parliament …let alone overseeing multi billion pound budgets. If you think the last and present governments have made a mess, see what economists say about Reform’s plans for the economy - they don’t add up!

The allegation that a “Westminster Bubble” kept Farage out of Parliament is bizarre. He stood at five general elections and two by-elections under the UKIP banner before he succeeded last year. It was the voters who kept him out - and Mr Sokol takes the view that “it is not for us to question them”!

Yours sincerely,

Sandra Jones

Old Cleeve

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Chief executive of Royal Voluntary Service