THERE is usually something quite unfair about blaming groups of people for something that they actually haven’t done.

Yet this is exactly what is happening here in Andover, where Ukip is blaming the ruling Conservatives on Test Valley Borough Council for the A-board saga.

The A-boards were on the public highway and Hampshire County Council (HCC) is the highway authority.

Under the Highways Act 1980, a role for the highway authority is to e n s u r e that users of the h i g h w a y can “pass and repass”. Therefore any structure placed on the highway needs to be placed with care, and to ensure this, any privately owned structure usually requires a licence. It is common practice that this includes A-boards, but unusually in this town, retailers have obviously been able to place such items on the highway unfettered for some time.

You could therefore argue that officers at HCC have finally decided to do their job and seek removal of the A-boards. But also you would have thought that county councillors such as Ukip’s Tony Hooke and Tim Rolt would have known what their county officers were doing.

Instead it would seem that they have sought to put b l a m e on to I a n C a r r and his Conservatives on TVBC.

Not only did Tony Hooke stand there in a High Street protest with a placard asking would Ian Carr meet with him and the incited crowd, but it would also seem that Ukip prospective parliamentary candidate Diana James went to find Ian Carr at his TVBC’s Beech Hurst offices.

She seems to have gone there to confront a council and a council leader who had nothing to do with seeking to remove the Aboards.

In fact, Ian Carr has even recently stated that he actually likes the A-boards, but he can do no right can he? And still the onslaught continues with weekly pro-Ukip letters slating him and his council on this issue.

My politics is centre left, therefore I’m no fan of Ian Carr or the Tories, but campaigns in this town have always generally been fair and respectful. I think this unfairness has been brought here by Tony Hooke and Diana James, who I understand do not even live here.

As for the poor retailers, I think that damage may have been done to their cause, and that they may have been used for blame games and political point scoring.

I think the best way may be for them to cut Ukip adrift, strengthen contacts with Conservatives at county and borough levels and work with them to bring in a licensing system. Because whether we like it or not, they after all hold the levers of power.

Paul Goddard, of St Anns Close, Andover, via e-mail