NORTHERN Rock! Do you know, some years ago when there was

this rush by building societies to become banks, I wrote about

the short-sightedness of accepting small windfall offers in

exchange for losing member status and potentially being at the

mercy of reckless trading on the financial markets.

Well, now you can see what the cost really was. The

strategic financial decisions made by Northern Rock as a bank

could not have been made by Northern Rock as a building

society.

At the same time as "ranting" about the demutualisation of

building societies I was also "barking" on about the dangers of

self-certification mortgages and reckless lending – 125 per

cent mortgage; what on earth is that about?

Well what both are about, in my humble opinion, is greed.

You see, at the time the borrower was making a false statement

about annual income. Those offering the mortgage didn't check

because the legal onus was on the applicant and at the end of

the day to the lender it didn't really matter.

Why didn't it matter? Well, in a property market that was

expanding what did it matter if the borrowers couldn't pay the

mortgage? The lender simply repossessed the property, which

would have increased in value, banked the previous payments and

simply moved on.

All very well in a booming house market – but that slowed,

didn't it? Which meant that 125 per cent lenders like Northern

Rock suddenly found that the 100 per cent value of the house

had only a 75 per cent repossession value. You can do the

maths.

Sadly, those decision-makers at the sharp end are protected

– as you will have noticed from the huge payout to the former

chief executive of Northern Rock. But as for the rest of us, we

simply struggle on picking up the debris from financial

decisions of those who perhaps should have known better.

Frank Sobey

Paignton

Careful canoeist

COAST watchers trained by the National Coastwatch

Institution are certainly used to "spotting, plotting and

reporting" unusual events and situations, but were startled one

early morning recently by a knock on the lookout tower door by

a young man in full canoeing kit.

He stated that there were such beautiful and calm sea

conditions that he thought he would paddle to work along the

coast to Dawlish Warren and in case we became unduly concerned

at his non-return after setting out and after rounding Holcombe

Point, wished to notify us he would not be returning until

later in the afternoon.

If only all canoeists were so understanding and thoughtful

of coast watchers' duties to keep a lookout and log all coastal

activity – and what an exceptional contribution towards the

environment for regular commuters to work… if only local sea

conditions would allow it!

A R Tregear

Teignmouth

Shooting practice

IN response to the letter from Animal Aid (July 23) I would

like to set the record straight about pheasant rearing and

shooting.

Game shooting is not the preserve of the wealthy, as Fiona

Pereira suggests, and I often meet people from all backgrounds

on a shoot day.

Animal Aid also claims that almost all game birds reared for

the shooting season are bred from birds kept in battery-style

metal cages. This is a gross exaggeration of the facts.

Only five or six game farms – about 5 per cent of UK

producers – use such cages. As the UK's largest shooting

organisation, the British Association for Shooting and

Conservation (BASC) has stated unequivocally that cage laying

systems are incompatible with the values of BASC and the future

of game shooting and wants them phased out.

The Code of Good Shooting Practice states that "game must be

regarded as food and should be treated as such from the moment

it is shot until it reaches the table". All shot game is either

taken home by the people on the shoot day or handed over to a

game dealer who will sell it on to butchers and supermarkets –

none is wasted.

Game is a healthy, tasty food, the market for which has

increased by 50 per cent over the last two years (Mintel 2007),

proving that more people than ever are choosing healthy and

wild game over more intensively reared meat alternatives.

For more information and recipes about game visit

www.gameson.org.uk

Helen Shuker

The British Association for Shooting and Conservation

Affordable blight

I WRITE in response to the article "County way of life at

the crossroads" by Matthew Taylor (July 23)..

The illustration with his article illustrates his idea of

heavenly "affordables" – yet the thing that struck me most

forcibly was the blight those awful buildings were casting over

that erstwhile beautiful valley and village. They blotted out

everything history had built up.

In any case, why would Mr Taylor think that people who,

after all, cannot afford to buy their homes because they are

not paid enough, would want to live in ugly, impersonal,

ticky-tacky concrete boxes like that?

I have to say that if this is Mr Taylor's idea of acceptable

housing for anybody, he is way off the mark.

I say again to Mr Taylor, and to his party, that the answer

to this problem is to pay people properly.

Tess Nash

Helston

Renewables opt-out

WITH the ever increasing costs of electricity, why is it

then that our bills do NOT show the prime cost of electricity,

and then the subsidy we all pay through our bills for wind and

other renewable energy supplies?

Pensioners like myself on fixed incomes, can then see how

much energy is costing us.

Those of us who wish to should also have the right to "opt

out" of having electricity supplied by wind and other

renewables and go for the much cheaper, and more reliable,

nuclear or coal alternative.

John Hilton

Helston