Water crisis is looming

Madam,

Again this summer, water shortages in August are being forecast. Two days of hot weather last week and the water system is predicted to go into crisis mode.

Plenty of advice about what the public can do, absolutely nothing from the water authorities about what they are going to do about it.

Despite, years of warnings on climate change, they are still using our rivers as open sewers, failing to keep up with demand or making the necessary reservoir provision for the future requirements. Severn Trent, keep telling us, "water is safe in their hands", but they haven't noticed it's running through their fingers.....

Name supplied

No mention of climate change

Madam.

The recent heat wave has shown us again how the changing climate affects our lives. Imagine, in 50 years’ time, the only ‘safe’ environment for us will be air-conditioning under cover where we grow our food, eat, live, reproduce and die. It does not have to be like that.

It is very hard to put controlling climate change at the top of a personal agenda when we are faced daily with more immediate things such as the cost of energy, food and housing. Yet, in the background and irrespective of the above, our world gets hotter and hotter. Again, it may be very difficult to accept the way climate change and its remedies are presented. Raw environmentalism goes down well with environmentalists, but not with everyone. Nevertheless, the climate is shared by us all.

The recent prime-ministerial contest has shown another side of the problem. No mention of climate change by any of the candidates until taken to task by Alok Sharma, the COP26 climate conference Chair. Having pressed the button, we were treated to endless streams of how much each loves and cares for the environment. But what would any of them actually do?

Sadness and frustration is rife amongst those of us to whom the climate crisis is already important. Lots of aspiration by governments, the minimum of action. Please, write to your MP, let him or her know you care about it. If they simply feed you tranquilisers and banality, come the next General Election, vote in someone you can trust to get the job done. Whether taxes go up or down, the climate simply goes in one direction – hotter. Meanwhile, look up the Wyre Forest Green Alliance to find a non-political group through which you can work to put pressure on the Government.

Roger Meade

Busses not good enough

Madam

On the 18th July I received an email from Worcestershire county council encouraging me to use my bus pass and pointing out the advantages and how it could be used to go somewhere I had not been.

It was also pointing out that operators received funds from carrying passengers with bus passes. My wife used her pass to go into Kidderminster town and found the bus was driven erratically and did not feel safe, she called me to fetch her back.

We take several holidays a year to Cornwall, Devon and Dorset and use the buses to go everywhere and everybody we talk to praises them. They run regularly and most of them run until 11.00pm, they have LED displays at most stops with a countdown to arrival of each bus and most of the time they run to schedule.

The county council needs an operator that can provide a better service, then they might get more people to use the bus I certainly would and so would a lot more bus pass holders.

Paul Dakin