I've heard someone wanting compensation. I think you may be entitled to compensation having not been informed by Anglian Water and becoming ill as a result.

One lady complained the supermarket would only allow X number of bottles of water. The complaint was that is was needed for baby's bottle feed but boiled water should be used anyway.

Another query was would the lager from Carlsberg be affected? I doubt it, as Carlsberg would be monitoring water quality all the time.

Come on you people, don't be so self-centred.

The poor people in Somalia would be grateful for water of a much poorer quality.

They would think they had won the lottery and the Euro lottery on the same day.

They haven't had rain for three years and have to rely on food hand outs as well.

So come on Northampton, think yourselves lucky to have water at all.
John Canning,
Main Road, Duston, Northampton.

Why I removed parking signs
Having been caught red-handed once trying to sneak in a 100 per cent price hike for residents parking in Northampton, you would think that the Tory group on the county council would have learnt the lessons of their underhand and undemocratic actions.

Indeed, Councillor Bob Seery admitted in April to the Chronicle & Echo that "we have certainly not communicated this matter very well" and went on to make a promise for "more effective, meaningful consultations to be carried out before a formal decision is made".

So what consultations have taken place with residents and traders since?

Have residents or traders been written to?

Have the reasons for increased charges been explained?

Has anyone got a clue how any new scratch card visitors' scheme would work?

Has the council said what it will do to create additional spaces for residents?

Will it review the number of short stay parking places?

Will it improve the hapless mismanagement of the scheme?

Do we know how carers and relatives visiting the elderly and infirm will be exempted?

Does the council really give two hoots about what we think?

The answer to all of the above questions would seem to be an unequivocal "no" and Bob Seery's prior promise of consulting with residents has been exposed as a fraud. We now know (thanks to the Chronicle & Echo) that what he really meant was that he was not going to do anything but sit on his rear end and wait for us to write to him by his recently-announced deadline of July 1.

I can think of few other issues which have upset residents in Castle Ward more than parking and the lack of attention to their concerns by the county council, at a time when expenditure on rural roads is rocketing, is making people very angry.

Some residents are so angry that they have now suggested to me that they will remove the residents' parking signs themselves so that the schemes are not enforceable.

Recently in Leicester Street, after receiving dozens of parking tickets and trying for three years to get a disused motorcycle bay removed, residents asked me to intervene.

The council told me that "they had no staff" and that there was a "long waiting list for Traffic Orders" and "it could be some time before they could promise anything".

So, with the help of an unnamed assistant, we removed the signs ourselves and put an end to the ticketing.

Therefore, if others do likewise over the failure of the council to consult with them properly and because the council won't listen to them, then who am I to criticise?
Councillor Tony Clarke,
Independent, Castle Ward, Northampton Borough Council.

Princess honour
I agree wholeheartedly with your columnist, David Saint, when he says we should rename the route from the M1 junction 15A to Sixfields road "Princess Diana Way".

The reason we have a pathetic plaque to the princess in the Guildhall is because at that time there were five towns to be granted city status by the Queen and Northampton council applied to be one of them.

Not wanting to upset the Queen by erecting a large statue of Diana, Princess of Wales, the council opted for a low-key approach by fitting a small, measly plaque.

I think the Queen saw through their creeping approach and consequently the town got no city status.

So let's now put Northampton town back on the world map by erecting a 12ft statue in Abington Street unveiled by the future King, her son, William, on August 31 next year and bring in tourists and much-needed revenue.
John Howsam,
Berry Lane, Wootton.

Thanks for kerbs
I have just read in the Chronicle & Echo that we are going to have a lot more dropped kerbs for people in wheelchairs and people like myself with electric scooters, as we cannot get up high kerbs either.

So thank you Mark Bullock.

It is great news with no more having to go in the road to get where we wanted.

I am sure there will be a lot of people who will be very pleased, so from all the wheelchair users and electric scooter users, a big thank you.
Margaret Rouse,
Exeter Place, Northampton.

Whose money?
My wife and I went to watch Northampton Carnival for the first time, as we missed the others in previous years due to prior commitments.

The carnival itself was quite good, although we were expecting a little more Caribbean input.

I know it is in its infancy and will probably improve.

However, I was mystified as to what charity was being collected for. Was it individual for each entry, or is there a central one?

We went armed with lots of change in a bag.

Most of the collecting buckets were open, with the exception of the Red Cross and Air Ambulance, which had non-return slots.

Most of the bucket carriers, at the time they passed us, were not looking for donations, just walking and chatting.

There was no encouragement for people to donate via penny throwing vans or megaphone pleading.

I'm not suggesting it should be made tacky by over-doing the requests, but if it is for a good cause, a little more encouragement to make people part with their pennies is in order.
Mike Franklin,
Reedham Close, New Duston, Northampton.

Look after centre
Why build more shops away from Northampton town centre when the Chron is publishing every week about the shops closing and leaving the town centre?

I thought the council's job would be to fill the empty shops we have in the town centre and then make Sixfields a second new shopping area.

Come on you councillors, how many complaints have you had from the shopkeepers and the shoppers of central Northampton (the town centre)?

Spend money first in central Northampton, not on the outskirts.
N R Sharp,
King Edward Road, Abington, Northampton.

Homes too close
Like Ms Wilmshurst, quoted in the article in Saturday's Chron regarding the trees in West Hunsbury, I am utterly horrified to hear about the ease with which the borough council allows trees to be felled, purely because houses have been built too near to them.

Why did they give permission for those houses to be built in the first place, so near to the trees?

There were three lovely rowan trees which have been felled at the bottom of Queenswood Avenue.

My question is: what is the borough council going to put in their place?

We tree lovers are as voices in the wilderness.

Nobody is listening.

I feel like weeping too, like Ms Wilmshurst.
Elizabeth Escudero,
Woodside Avenue, Boothville, Northampton.