SIR – Following the third anniversary of my move to Malvern I thought it high time that I underwent the rite of passage that is having a letter published, and what better topic than the suggestion that a cable car be constructed on the Hills. 
I’ll not linger over my judgement – it’s a terrible idea – but, rather than get apoplectic giving full vent to my inner NIMBY, will instead propose an alternative that might well appeal to various constituencies, not least visitors and veterans. 
The suggestion? A charabanc, in the manner of the imposing elongated vehicles of the 1920s, climbing the hills on pre-determined days of the year delivering its dozen or so occupants to a suitable vantage point where they can open its commodious boot, disgorging a picnic of some splendour to be consumed before a postprandial descent. 
The vehicle would be a custom project constructed by Malvern Motor Company, running on electricity and would normally reside at their factory as a testament to their coach-building, though in addition to the prescribed hill trips would also be available for private hire. Provisions for the picnic would make full use of local produce.
TIM WHITE
Malvern

Why has our waste collection cost risen?
SIR – An article in the Worcester News (October 6) stated that Worcester City Council forecast a budget of £220,000 in the black for the end of this year. 
This is due to higher than expected car parking income, garden waste collection and a drag on recruitment.
I would ask that the council give an explanation as to why there was a 40 per cent increase from £37 (March 2014) to £52 (March 2015) in the charges for the collection of garden waste, when inflation was running at less than two per cent in March 2015.
Will the council take this into account when reviewing the charges for 2016?
DAVID WRIGHT
Battenhall, Worcester

Personal attacks do little for an argument
SIR – N. Taylor (Letters, October 9) doth, tellingly, protest too much, and his blustering personal attack does his argument no credit, especially when he self-deludes by claiming to keep out of the “gutter”. The words “pot” and “kettle” spring to mind – although this should not be taken as an admission on my part of being a kettle.
Contrary to his further over-sensitive claims, my earlier offering did, in fact, “respond meaningfully” to his previous one. He is perfectly entitled not to “give a fig” for my opinions, but I care a lot about his, because they scare me half to death. I am reminded of what the recently-deceased Denis Healey said of Margaret Thatcher: Mr. Taylor seems “to approach the problems of our country with all the one-dimensional subtlety of a comic strip”.
DAVID BARLOW
Worcester

We should try to bring life back to city centre
SIR – Councillor Lynn Denham is 100 per cent right, as is Louis Stephen to encourage a movement toward repopulating the city centre again.
When the shops close at night the city becomes a ghost town, a sort of waste land, but it was never so and need not be so again. When the businessmen in the city closed shop for the night and had their evening meals, the High Street and other areas would be busy, with people talking and meeting others in the same sort of occupation, maybe having a quiet pint. It was one reason why there were so many pubs.
That way of life has gone but those empty city spaces can be filled again.
J G PRITCHARD 
Worcester


I won’t be shopping in Worcester again
SIR – To the person who stole my coat from the women’s changing rooms at Marks & Spencer, Worcester, on Tuesday, October 6.
I hope you get as much pleasure from wearing it as I did and that you don’t have it stolen from you.
A shopping trip spoiled by a mean individual. Suffice to say I won’t be shopping in Worcester again.
GERALDINE YATES (Upset and angry!) 
Malvern

Lack of lights makes it a mugger’s paradise
SIR – How sad Malvern looks after dark. Walking back to the car park in Edith Walk after the theatre it struck me how miserable the place looks now the dark nights are here.
Few shops have any lights on at all and Church Walk is positively dangerous. Were it not for the estate agents and Italian restaurant the place would be as black as the ace of spades. 
Negotiating the steps at the end of the passage would be difficult to say the least for anyone slightly infirm, and the place is  a muggers paradise.
Surely the owners of Church Walk can afford a few lights – they are there, just not on!
One further grouse – whilst I have every sympathy for anyone disabled enough to be obliged to use a buggy, surely these should not be on the road. Some time ago, there was a queue of traffic in Worcester Road, caused by a gentleman cruising gently along among the cars and lorries. 
He was almost invisible to vehicles and a very real danger to himself and other road users. One wonders what the insurance situation is?
M H DOWNS
Malvern