SIR - Queue Jumping around the Ketch to St Peter’s Roundabouts
So we used to have a single lane road, and everyone was frustrated by the queues, however we queued in an orderly fashion.
We now have a dual carriageway. The majority of considerate motorists continue to queue.
Then we have the outside lane drivers who think it is fine to try to jump the queue... northbound trying to break into it at the front near St Peters, Southbound at the Ketch, either doing a 360 around the roundabout (even though it is signed WORCESTER ONLY), or worse still trying to squeeze in (including big lorries) at the potentially deadly bridge.
This dangerous, and selfish behaviour is certainly annoying me, and no doubt others too. After all, we all want to get there as quickly as we can, and this blatant queue jumping is really unacceptable.
Regarding the Ketch travelling south, perhaps a traffic enforcement officer might like to position himself there on a busy rush hour and hand out a few tickets. It might get the message out, and he could achieve his annual target in one evening!
He might also want to have a spot at the roundabout near junction 7, another marvellous design to encourage collisions as the drivers in the middle lane choose to turn left, in a blind spot for those who followed the rules of the road.
PAUL HETHERINGTON
Malvern

Child services need to be held to account
SIR - I heard a report on Tuesday evening’s BBC news, about a young girl who’d run away from her children’s home, and returned again.
The BBC reporter suggested there were two questions to ask, why she ran away, and what did she want.
 He was entirely wrong, as every reporter appears to be on this vital issue, because while there are two questions to ask, it wasn’t those.
The first must be why do the child services departments responsible for running these places allow the so-called ‘rights’ of the children to supersede the rights and responsibilities of the professional adults charged with their welfare?
If I, or any other parents, permitted our young children to wander off into the night whenever they felt like doing so, we would rightly be labelled neglectful parents, and might face having the child services department taking our children into care...but then being being equally neglectful!
I came across this same problem 15 years ago, when I was a police officer working in Birmingham, and I asked the same question of the residential social worker I spoke to in a home there.
She told me it was ridiculous, but those in charge would not even allow her or her colleagues to physically stop a child leaving the home at any time!
Children’s homes are a magnet for paedophiles, because they know children are allowed to get away with doing many things, including absconding in the night, they would never get away with doing in a stable, loving family home.
So my second question is, when will this nonsense be addressed?
My conclusion is that because of what we term ‘political-correctness’, children (especially in care homes) are given more rights than those adults charged with their care, and the result is neglect and, in cases like Rotherham, Oxford, and what are likely to be many more places, organised grooming and abuse.
My question is, when will broadcasters like the BBC, together with the newspaper media, actually start asking the right questions, thereby holding Child Services departments to account?
WILL RICHARDS
Malvern

We can live without slaughter of sheep
SIR - Many readers will have been relieved that no sheep were injured after a flock of them wandered on to the A449 (“Black sheep causing trouble on the roads”, Worester News, July 28).
However, it could well be said that these sheep were the lucky ones, or at least the lucky ones for just the time being.
This is because about 14 million sheep are slaughtered in the UK every year, half of them while still lambs at just a few months old.
And we also have the appalling situation of four million newborn lambs dying every year within a few days of birth, mostly from disease, exposure, or malnutrition, and about a million adult breeding animals perishing in the fields annually.
One of the main reasons for this is that our grassland is not the natural habitat for a species that originated in a much more arid climate, with the result that they incur serious health problems, such as footrot and parasitical diseases.
All this suffering and slaughter is totally unnecessary, because we can all live perfectly healthily without meat or any other animal products.
Thankfully more and more people are becoming vegan or vegetarian every year and many others are reducing their consumption of meat, fish, eggs and dairy out of concern for animals, the environment or their own health.
Worcestershire Vegans & Veggies exists to help people switch to a more humane diet and lifestyle and we can be contacted at info@worcsveg.org.uk, on 01562 700043 or via our website at worcsveg.org.uk.
RONALD LEE
Communications Officer
Worcestershire Vegans & Veggies

Husband had such wonderful care
SIR, Please can you express my sincere thanks to Dr Dutter and her team, Julie the matron, senior staff, carers, occupational therapist Jo and all the receptionists, kitchen staff and cleaners for the wonderful care given to my husband Brian Fisher on Unit 4.
JOYCE FISHER
Worcester

Village couples were in the wrong county
SIR - We were delighted with your photo of the Golden Wedding couples in Cradley Church commemorating all those weddings. It was a very special photo and surely it cannot be often that a village as small as Cradley can have nine couples celebrating such an event?
Just one thing jars – in the caption. Despite a Worcester postcode the village of Cradley is in Herefordshire not Worcestershire!
JOHN AND ELIZABETH GILBERT
Cradley, Herefordshire