WHEN he was little, my eldest son was in the last class of a small rural school that was closed down with only nine children left.

There was an opportunity to look at the old attendance rolls and about 80 years earlier there had been as many as 110 children at that school. Over the years, the employment on the land had largely gone.

This is not the fault of government or the townies, but is the result of long-term change that has mostly been driven by the landowners themselves. And everywhere, small shops are closing down or are under threat.

It is all very sad and we have a diminished environment. But each of us who fills up a car with shopping at Asda or Tesco has contributed to this. If anyone is looking for a single cause of the decline, it is our cars. It is altogether due to many factors. The simplistic claims of the Countryside Alliance do not actually stand up.

JOHN BOWLEY,

Jasmine Way,

Trowbridge.

THE recent Countryside March drew attention to many worthwhile causes and inequalities in our countryside by country folk, including farmers and landowners.

I am a Wiltshire Moonraker who has been privileged to work the length and breadth of the Wiltshire countryside all of my life: I have observed the creeping grey land of urbanisation of west Wiltshire; the destruction of miles of hedgerow; the industrialisation of large sectors of arable and livestock farming land in hand with the disappearance of many small and medium sized 'family farms'.

There has been a great loss in the number of skylarks and other songbirds, and many local streams have become polluted by fertilisers and farm chemicals leaching into them.

There are, of course, individuals (including farmers and landowners) together with various organisations attempting to halt these trends, however the general degradation of our environment continues.

Just who is capable of being responsible for the wise stewardship of our environment in the countryside? What kind of quality of liberty and livelihood are we striving for?

DAVID J OVENS,

Bratton Road,

West Ashton,

Trowbridge.