LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Glasses found

A pair of prescription glasses were found on Brecon Rd last week. They were in a blue hard case. If they belong to you, they have been handed in to the Stratford Police Station. NAME WITHHELD

Great tree

Wow! What a fantastic Christmas tree we have in Prospero Place and what a wonderful area that little square is becoming for families. With the gardens in tyres, the sandpit, the tree and fun activities organised it is becoming an absolute pleasure to spend time in Stratford.

Thank you everyone who is involved in making our town so vibrant and interesting.

Shops shut

S TASEN With the school holidays meaning long days of laziness, our grandchildren (and us adults) were excited to be able to go for a walk to spend some of their Christmas money on January 2. Sadly, that walk left them almost completely emptyhanded as most shops in town were shut!

We weren’t the only ones walking through along Broadway looking for things to buy either, we spoke to several tourists who complained they struggled to find open shops.

Surely our local shopkeepers can’t all be on holiday at the same time? I hope I won’t hear them complaining this year that they struggle to make a profit — if they really want to make a profit, then opening their doors would be a good start! K RICHARDS

Magical night

Once again the Stratford Christmas Parade was a great night out. Thanks to all the people who put floats together and got involved in creating a magical night out for the younger people in town. It was lovely to see so many people enjoying the night, and the market stalls were great as well. It would be lovely to see more stallholders get involved in selling next year, especially if we could have more local craft and produce and less pyramid selling stalls. There are only so many wax melts, ointments and the like we need — let’s have more unique and handmade items and less of the other stuff in the future!

It was also great having some shops stay open as for those of us who work out of town, it is hard to get in and support our own shops sometimes so this gave us a chance to shop local as part of our evening’s entertainment.

T SINCLAIR

Last race day

How sad it was to attend what is likely to be the very last race day in Stratford last month. A great family friendly day out is being taken away from the community because the government wants to make more money. Even worse is the fact the land will be sold and the money not given to the community. What will end up there? Office blocks? Cheap housing? Whatever it will be won’t give the community half as much pleasure as the racecourse which has been part of the town for so many years. L TRENT

Family friendly?

With grandchildren and other relatives visiting us this Christmas, my husband and I thought it would be a good idea to take everyone to the Stratford races for the day as we have heard a lot about it being a family friendly day out.

Well, it was certainly full of children, but I am not convinced it was family friendly . . . most children were running around either unsupervised or hanging out in the kids’ area, without their parents anywhere near.

The parents were in fact mainly getting incredibly drunk and loud even before the first race was started.

I am not anti alcohol at all but I do think more needs to be done at an event like this to ensure people are drinking responsibly.

I took one child back to its parents after it had been crying but couldn’t get the parents to pay any attention to their child being sad, as they were too drunk and silly. Within minutes I saw the same child (who I think was about 3 or 4) walking off again, totally unsupervised.

Our family left early, as we found the event unenjoyable due to the amount of alcohol being consumed around us.

I wonder how many cars were driven home that night by people under the influence? R SMITH