YOUR pages have reported extra efforts to capitalise on the Magna Carta anniversary to boost visitor numbers and tourist revenues to the city – all commendable stuff. Maybe someone working on this project should nudge whoever cleans and maintains the roads to and from Salisbury – on Sunday morning we drove from Amesbury through to Southampton.

There is a wellington boot on the first roundabout as you leave Amesbury – it’s been there in the gutter since the New Year; and as may be expected all the way into Salisbury there was litter visible in the verges as well as the usual lumps, bumps and potholes of our roads – including that bit of the A345 just before the park and ride that was beautifully re-surfaced when Balfour Beatty took things over in 2013 – the surface appears to have delaminated already – what I took as a (for once) proper repair has lasted only about two years!

Leaving on the A36 from Salisbury reminded me of driving through East Germany or Czech about 20 years ago… only worse. The litter on the side of the A36 all the way to the county border was incredible, plastic and paper in the hedges, verges and laybys all the way until the signs told us we had entered Hampshire.

Surely, if we are to display our city to its best we should make sure those who are paid to look after such things do their job and make the approach roads to our city presentable – or do I just have an old fashioned view of such things?

Adam Woods

Salisbury

THERE have recently been a number of letters published in the Salisbury Journal with regard to the amount of accumulated rubbish that plagues the main routes both into, and out of, Salisbury.

The A36, in particular, is a known ‘litter magnet’.

Perhaps I could draw your readers’ attention to the fact that Wiltshire Council has a website (wiltshire.gov.uk) where anyone can report instances of fly-tipping, litter etc?

I have absolutely no connection with Wiltshire Council, other than having been instrumental in reporting similar issues in the past, all of which have been very quickly acknowledged and (mostly!) rectified.

Out of interest, the A36 south of Salisbury litter problem has already been logged by Wiltshire Council under Reference Number 252221 and is currently listed as being ‘scheduled’.

David Cummings

Salisbury

I TOTALLY agree with the letter submitted by Jane Martin in the last edition of the Salisbury Journal.

The condition of the majority of roadside verges in the Amesbury area is also appalling, in some cases overflowing with a combination of casually discarded fast food cartons and obvious examples of fly-tipping.

I have just spent an hour of my day off filling two large bin bags with rubbish that was recently deposited at the top end of Amesbury Road, the rat run joining Cholderton with the westbound A303.

I have to ask myself just what is Wiltshire Council's strategy in dealing with rubbish dumping and fly-tipping?

What do we pay our council tax for?

In the same edition of the Salisbury Journal, I notice that Wiltshire Council has just increased the number of cabinet members from nine to ten, so perhaps I have my answer.

Cabinet members?

For goodness sake, get over yourselves.

Stop pontificating and get on with doing the jobs we pay you for!

Ray Patrickson

Cholderton

ON Saturday morning I had cause to do some shopping in Salisbury.

I drive along the A36 from the Southampton direction.

I was absolutely horrified by the amount of rubbish littering the verges and central reservation along the Alderbury bypass.

It looked as if several open top lorries had gone along there scattering their loads of rubbish.

The verges were one long stream of rubbish such that you could hardly see the grass and the plastic bags and other rubbish were hanging off the hedgerow like old wallpaper hanging off a damp wall.

Easter is the start of the tourist season and many continental visitors enter the country from one of our south coast ports and approach Salisbury along the A36.

What a glorious reception!

Miles of litter virtually from the M27 to Salisbury.

What sort of impression does this create when they see the English countryside despoiled by such filth?

What encouragement is it to others to take their rubbish home with them instead of flinging it out of the window?

While, as local residents, we go to the trouble of picking up litter in the village, the highways authorities consider the A36 too dangerous for anyone other than their own employees to do this job.

We have to rely on Wiltshire highways to deal with this task.

The city elders and councillors need to apply pressure to Wiltshire Council to get something done about it before the visitors to our wonderful city form the wrong impression and pass on the message to other would be tourists.

MJ Martin Landford