SURELY the Test Valley Borough Council should be referred to the trade descriptions people for its blatant and brazen misrepresentation of the area in its most recent tourist brochure?

This has on the front a very beautiful picture of the River Test taken at the meander near Houghton Lodge with a fisherman’s thatched hut and the bridge, the hanging willows – stunning! – good marketing...

There is only one problem – that location is private along with the greater stretch of the whole riverside banks throughout the area.

“Come and see the Test!” Indeed you can at a few – a very few – choice locations where footpaths cross the river.

They are so few and most locals will know them.

Stockbridge Common – don’t go without a messy dog, Longparish – lane by the Upper Mill and Houghton – bridge over the Clarendon Way – that’s about it!

Tiny places for a little glance but nowhere can you walk “along the River Test”

– the old rail line is hardly a riverside walk.

Truly I think the use of this clear deceit by the council and should be challenged.

Better still challenge those who after the last war purchased the rights to these glorious river bank walks and simply closed them.

Don’t use the river to try to sell this as a tourist area unless the picture shows clearly, ‘Private’, ‘Keep Out’, ‘No Access’, and the symbol of a barbed wire fence.

TVBC are guilty of shameful deceit!

Marion Ferguson, Marlborough Member of the Southern Riverside Rights Group.