YOUR letters page raised so many issues last week that I could write at least four letters but the one I have to respond to is the rambling, illogical tosh from Andover town councillor Michael James responding to someone ‘wanting to break away from TVBC’.

‘We would not be able to have the services we have here in Andover’ – and – ‘the reason I see... when the government gave the right to buy... it was then that the rates were taken away’.

What has any one of those things got to do with any other?

And why would we not be able to have the services we have here in Andover? Does he think that the good people of Romsey are so beneficent that they take upon themselves to pay more than their fair share of TVBC’s costs in order to reduce the amount that we in Andover pay? And when the rates were taken away (and replaced by council tax) did we stop funding our own services?

And when later he states ‘the feeling would be’ – who does he mean and what has that got to do with the price of fish?

‘Where would the money come from to ...’ well where the hell does he think the money comes from now? Andover (and its surrounds) pay their share of TVBC’s costs now and would pay the same to cover any new council’s costs that was providing the same services.

He also feels that we need more investment into the Andover areas to encourage more companies etc. Well if Andover had its own council responsible only to Andover that might happen but while the council’s decisions are tempered by what Romsey councillors want for Romsey (and by them voting on issues which affect Andover but have nothing to do with Romsey) that isn’t a significant issue for TVBC.

Then as a ‘throw away’ he comments that more houses are being built – where are the jobs going to come from and that we need more schools and doctors surgeries – do we? – we might, but he offers no supporting facts.

He ends with ‘Andover needs to stay with TVBC because Andover would not survive and we would be lost in the past once again – why?

– and this from an Andover town councillor who, one imagines, has supposedly the best interests of Andover at heart.

What a load of tosh.

Stanley Oram, Bulbery, Abbotts Ann