FOR some time it has puzzled me what is attracting so many gypsies to Winsford.

I could not believe my fellow Winsfordians would ignore all the warnings in the press and on TV about employing unreliable transients when they could give much-needed work to the many reliable local tradesmen listed in Yellow Pages.

It seems I was wrong. Plenty of local employment does indeed appear to be the gypsies' attraction to the area. Easy for them, with no rent, rates, taxes or worthwhile guarantees, to under-price the proper workforce, do a shoddy job and (eventually) move on, leaving behind dissatisfied householders.

Unfortunately, they also leave filth and piles of asphalt, concrete and PVC cladding from their varied enterprises which we ratepayers then pay to clean up.

The gypsies are currently invading Woodford Lodge High School grounds, where they moved when eventually evicted from the land adjacent, and have also arrived on land next to the Focus store, destroying the grass verges and fowling the sites.

Please cease providing succour to these moving bands who desecrate our land and hopefully they will return from whence they came. A letter to your local MP to lobby for a change in the by-laws which appear to favour the gypsies would also seem like a good idea!

Irate resident.

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.