MANNINGTREE might as well have a welcome mat for criminals since they closed the police station.

Several businesses have been broken into and now there have been two ram raids.

This is supposed to be a quiet country town, not the wild west.

How ironic that an ATM should be attacked when the police budget is being so generously spent instead on foreign aid.

It is lucky a lunatic is in charge of the Labour party as I cannot see any other reason to vote for the present government, whose priority is anyone who isn’t a British taxpayer, and with a PM who thinks tearing foxes apart is acceptable.

C. Joseph, Lydgate Close, Lawford

  • West Tey plans keep me awake at night

Was it the full moon, a large plate of cheese, or is it the thought of 23,000 homes being built near Marks Tey that is keeping me awake? Either way, its a nightmare.

The full moon has given rise to the word "lunatic" and it will certainly need a lunatic to approve of a new town, the size of Braintree, to be built, hey, just down the road from Braintree!

As I take my place in the A120 queue, hoping to reach Marks Tey in time to get a train to London, I ponder on the torment and pollution that will be visited upon the residents of Coggeshall and The Teys over the next 20/30 years if the proposed new Commuter Town on the Colchester/Braintree border goes ahead.

The planned-for revised A120 will do little to save the present road from becoming a full-on urban shuttle and, meanwhile, just think of the noise and pollution as the new town takes shape?

Your children will be unlikely to find much employment in this new town and will probably need to commute in order to afford one of the new homes.

I foresee Japanese style Train Packers stuffing our loved ones into double-decker, standing-room only hell-hole trains as part of the madness.

Wow, this nightmare continues.

Everyone should contact their Essex County and Borough Councillors urging them to oppose this new town. End this nightmare: "Say No to West Tey".

Norman Stechman, East Gores Road, Coggeshall

  • I don’t want to live in one-party state

It is clear the Conservative Party has decided to make this a second vote on Brexit with Mrs May stepping into Nigel Farage’s shoes, to bring the hard line outers from UKIP into the Tory fold.

I say this, as unlike the other party’s who are treating this like any other election by putting forward policies; Theresa is approaching this from a Presidential point of view by saying vote for me and everything will be alright, otherwise you will have a coalition of chaos and instability (her words).

I don’t recall that happening under the previous coalition government under Cameron.

This approach is taken no doubt to deflect criticism from the continuing privatisation/cuts to the NHS and the dismantling of the education system which has been under county council control for a century, plus giving more money to the well off by raising the top tax threshold while refusing to say whether the triple lock will be retained for pensioners, as the other parties have.

Oh, and cutting disability benefit etc.

Personally I do not want to live in a one party state,where the executive has complete power and can dictate their unfettered doctrine to a powerless electorate.

If I wanted that I could go to China, Russia or North Korea, although I don’t think I would last very long.

Peter C Townes Toucan Way, Great Clacton

  • Lots of falsehoods in some letters

We read a lot within the pages of your newspaper about fake news, but what about erroneous opinions?

Are these not the same in that they promote specious argument or a flatly wrong fact to support it, no doubt because, supposedly anything oft repeated will become established fact.

To write that it was the EU “came into being to stop another war happening” is totally wrong.

Factually what the UK joined was the the European Economic Community, a trade organisation.

It had and has no current Army but in it’s new guise as the EU, a form of the United States of Europe, it does want an army.

Peace was maintained in the main within Europe by NATO – the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation – it was under that banner or that of the UN that forces from European countries went into military action.

Factually Germany was not allowed to use military force outwith its borders, but that was changed so they could participate in the first Gulf War.

Letters are a vital part of any newspaper, but please be factual, not a blatant opinionated demagogue, otherwise you look foolish in the eyes of the readers.

Roy Everett, Coldnailhurst Avenue, Braintree

  • Do politicians ever represent us?

It never ceases to amaze me that well educated, supposedly intelligent people achieve positions of control that affect the public, but appear to make weird decisions, all exposed by letters of complaint in the Gazette.

After years of complaints the public ask prior to elections, do politicians ever represent the public?

Our concerns fall on deaf ears and promises never materialise.

And they wonder why people do not vote.

Brian Love, Gentian Court, Braiswick, Colchester

  • Station can not handle the congestion

MILE End has been neglected by Essex Highways for far too long and we are fed up with reporting the serious issues with congestion to highways without any sign of them seeking to improve the situation.

North Station is often at a standstill at peak times during the week and weekends, with local shops and businesses being hit.

Yes we have had meetings, campaigned and received promises that it will be looked at but it is always at some future date.

The serious congestion is here and now, yet planning applications are still being supported by Highways with the cumulative effect which we are now experiencing.

How can more housing help given the huge amount being built already.

Business is being seriously affected and we do not want our businesses to fail.

We want to help them to grow so improved infrastructure in that area is now due.

So come on Essex County Council stop stalling and get on with sorting this serious problem out.

Anne Turrell, Liberal Democrat county councillor for Mile End and Highwoods Mile End Road, Colchester