I AM afraid Miss Anita Knittel is mistaken (Evening News, May 1) when she claimed that the majority of people living in the countryside support a ban on hunting.

Her suggestion does not in anyway resemble the real facts about hunting, the countryside or the people who live and work there.

One crushing piece of evidence against Miss Knittel's claim is the survey carried out by the Labour Party "leave country sports alone" group.

They asked all the farms in the Leamington Constituency of Labour MP and Home Office Minister Mike O'Brien whether they wished to have hunting banned. A resounding 97 per cent said "no".

The Burns report into hunting conducted for this Government found, after close questioning of people from three very different areas, that the majority certainly did not favour a ban.

This investigation into the acceptance of hunting in rural Britain was a very detailed piece of work which concluded that 75 per cent of country people had no desire to see hunting banned.

There perhaps once seemed to be a majority who favoured a ban but this has been steadily slipping away to a point were the reverse is now actually true.

J WOOD, Worcester.