The North River Wey is at a critical moment right now. Kings Pond is being discussed. The River Wey runs through this pond and turns from being a beautiful chalk stream to a mucky, polluted river that eventually flows through Gostrey Meadows in Farnham.

There is a meeting at Alton Assembly Rooms on Monday, November 11 at 6pm as part of the consultation being held before Alton chooses between a new scheme – Pond and River – or the old system of dredging the pond every 25 years.

If those who love to feed the geese have their way, then Kings Pond will essentially remain the same and the North River Wey will lose its chance of restoration to a beautiful chalk river.

It is critical that the debate be widely shared so the river gets a fair chance. I am currently writing an article titled: Can the North Wey River be Restored to a Chalk Stream?

I and other Farnham water rangers will be at the meeting on November 11, as will those mentioned above.

Alton has some beautiful chalk streams in its own floodplain just the other side of the town. We in Farnham only have what comes downstream of the pond.

Please do look at the Alton Council website: www.alton.gov.uk/kings-pond-project and read the briefing document on this site – it is of real importance.

Sally Ferguson

How does the Government get away with abolishing county councils and re-organising district councils without any mandate?

How will county-wide services continue, eg the Surrey Archive in Woking, museums and in the Passenger Transport Group?

The latter deals with all bus operators and routes and school transport. It also publishes the excellent Surrey timetables.

Will there be new passenger transport groups in both East and West Surrey, with inevitable duplication of offices and staff? How does that produce savings?

Malcolm Chase

Kent Road

Fleet

On seeing the map that has been submitted by Cllr Catherine Powell (Herald and Post, October 30), the picture or plan of Farnham infrastructure works just about sums it up. No explanation, few arrows and some letters. Clear as mud.

What a waste of time and effort. Please try to explain the roadworks so the people of Farnham can understand what you are trying to put across.

Les Wyld

Summer Road

Farnham

Many readers will have seen the utter devastation wrought by Hurricane Melissa across multiple island nations in the Caribbean – including Jamaica, Haiti and Cuba. It’s left families without homes and in urgent need of support.

At the disaster relief charity ShelterBox, we're sending an emergency response team to the region. Communication networks are widely affected, so having a team in Jamaica will make it easier to understand the true extent of the damage and what people need, as well as continuing co-ordination with humanitarian partners and Rotary in the Caribbean.

ShelterBox specialises in emergency shelter, and having aid pre-positioned means we're ready to go in these moments. We have emergency shelter supplies – like tents and tarpaulins – stored in Barbados and Panama, enough to support up to 10,000 people. These include essentials like blankets, water carriers, mosquito nets and solar lights.

Being ready for disasters like this is vital, and it's only possible with the support of people in our local communities. Just before this hurricane season, we opened a new aid hub in Barbados to boost our readiness. It followed our response in the Caribbean last year to Hurricane Beryl, where we supported thousands of people in Grenada with shelter and essential items.

Right now, we've launched an urgent appeal to support people affected by Hurricane Melissa and other disasters. It can be hard to know how to help after disasters of this scale, but every donation, however small, makes a real difference to disaster-affected communities.

Dave Raybould

Head of Emergency Responses

ShelterBox

There’s a new £2.6 billion black hole in the Ministry of Defence budget. Time to look at the £9 billion-a-year Royal Air Force, over-manned and under-employed. The RAF has the most comfortable of the services’ Harmony Guidelines – more time at home for the RAF. For the same pay, sailors and marines have the toughest Harmony Guidelines.

The RAF ‘owns’ 75 per cent of all British aircraft, too many not operational; it operates just 50 per cent of front-line aircraft, the other half Army or Navy. Forty air marshals head 6,000 RAF officers. Most of the RAF’s 30,000 personnel, only 20 per cent with flying duties, are home-based ground crew. Sixty RAF personnel for each one of the RAF’s 500 aircraft (including 160 trainers and 90 gliders) is outrageous.

A week after lunatics broke into RAF Brize Norton, causing £7 million damage, Air Chief Marshal Sir Rich Knighton, the Chief of the Air Staff, was appointed as Chief of Defence Staff – a reward for failure? Knighton headed an RAF that has now asked Indian Air Force instructors for assistance with pilot training, while other pilots have been trained in the United States. With a reported toxic culture, too, the RAF has managed flying training with extraordinary incompetence.

With RAF front-line operations mainly in support of land forces, the RAF should be merged into the Army. The resulting two armed services would save billions and afford better operational efficiency for UK defence, with no reduction in air capability.

Lester May

Lieutenant Commander, Royal Navy, retired

Address supplied