I read your sad story about the Greek Restaurant in Downing Street (Farnham Herald, October 16) joining a long list of closures, with the proprietor, Mr Arapi, citing the town centre improvement plan as a contributory factor.

It surely has not gone unnoticed by the Herald that all the business owners and indeed resident and frequent visitors are in despair at the impact the scheme is having on trading, footfall and the well being of the town.

Like Covid , the real consequence will take time to manifest. If monuments such as Elphicks were to fall the town would become a non-entity.

I have no doubt that if Sir Ray [Tindle] was still with us, the Herald would be leading the protest and pushing the county and district council to devise schemes and incentives for people to return and support the hard-pressed traders to recover some revenue over the forthcoming Christmas period.

Please use your considerable influence to campaign publicly on behalf of all those who love the town to force our elected representatives and their officials out of their bunkers and get the town moving now.

Alan Bate,

Frensham

I read the Farnham Herald last week (October 16) and the disappointing news about so many businesses in the town centre who are struggling during the roadworks.

Last week, I had a response to an email sent to the FIP team which tells me that the Borough, from Castle Street to the traffic lights on South Street, will be closed for 12 weeks from January 2026 to create a single lane and wider pavements.

I can only imagine the despair of the business community.

Richard Stubberfield

Lower Bourne

Regarding your letter last week (Herald & Post, October 16) from Mr Brooking, I read it with some bemusement at finding a supporter of the Prime Minister.

Let me say from the off that I am, honestly, apolitical. I feel disenfranchised, as there are no serious politicians or political parties to vote for these days. I’m afraid they remind me of those halcyon days of childhood when one of our rare and great pleasures was to visit Bertram Mills Circus, whose clowns were of the highest standard of clowning and tomfoolery. The only difference is that those clowns were professionals, paid to be so. Our politicians seem to have become confused about what they are paid to do.

Mr Brooking writes that Sir Keir has “set out Labour’s achievements to date and his own vision for the future”. That must have been a very short speech. Starmer has no vision, has never had a vision, and anything he has said he stands for — from when he campaigned to be party leader up to becoming PM — has changed more often than I change my socks (every day). Even if he did have a vision, it would go nowhere unless it suited his left-wing backbenchers, who, for example, stymied his plans on welfare reform.

The sad truth is that all the parties are desperately throwing out “policies” in an attempt to gain future votes — either next May or at the next general election. This is pathetic.

Announcements about “investing” £24 billion into the NHS are meaningless. It is another black hole in need of radical reform, as do all the public service institutions. Such “action” always prompts me to ask: what are we going to get for it? More doctors and nurses (we can’t, as these positions are oversubscribed and the Treasury won’t fund all of these places, so we import them)? Further reduced waiting lists (by how many, and over what time)? And so on. My point is that one needs to measure the outcomes and relate them to input to determine value for money — but I could be speaking Etruscan as far as our various governments are concerned.

No political party or ideology has all the answers. Some industries may be best nationalised — for example, transport (but with strict controls over trade unions to avoid the country being held to ransom) — while others may be best left to the markets, but should have more effective controls to avoid the Thames Water disasters that have beset the country.

I don’t have the answers, as I don’t have the billions and billions of taxes each government prodigiously wastes. I can see, however, that our country is broken, perhaps beyond repair. We need radical redesign to meet the future — and to do that, we may need, as after World War Two, some kind of emergency coalition government that will adopt policies and solutions fit for purpose, meeting people’s needs in all walks of life, not some backroom bunch of swivel-eyed zealots indulging themselves (see Monty Python’s Life of Brian — Reg and the People’s Front of Judea).

If you believe Starmer is our saviour, then God bless you, Mr Brooking. I wish you and yours well — and would be delighted to be proved wrong.

Don Latuske,

Badshot Lea

A new YouGov survey of 13,000 people suggests voters across Surrey are rethinking old Conservative loyalties in favour of the Liberal Democrats, including here in Farnham & Bordon. After years of political turbulence, people are rightly looking for something different — a politics that listens, serves, and puts compassion back at its heart.

I’ve met countless local people who’ve borne the brunt of national mismanagement: parents struggling to secure special educational needs support, carers pushed to exhaustion, pensioners anxious about heating bills, and young families locked out of affordable housing. Their stories reveal a yearning for dignity and fairness.

Yet amid that frustration, there is hope. Across our communities, volunteers, campaigners and small charities continue to do extraordinary things. They deserve leaders who match that decency with action.

We need a government that supports carers, gives every child a fair start, and funds a health service accessible to all. We should build an economy based on partnership, restoring our trading relationships, supporting small businesses, and investing in skills and innovation.

Above all, we must resist the rise of divisive identity politics. Across our region, people share values of decency, fairness and kindness.

There is far more that unites us than divides us. The real challenge now is to rebuild trust and restore compassion and integrity to public life.

Khalil Yousuf

Former Lib-Dem candidate for Farnham and Bordon