Like many others I was pleased to learn in the Review, that the letter written by John Harris Review was not the John Harris who was the former Mayor of Cinderford.

The John Harris I knew was a great patriot of Cinderford and the Forest and understood our deeply rooted woodland culture. He had one of the finest collections of books on these aspects and was interested in gardening and the environment.

I attended his presentations in Cinderford library and listened to him speak  many times as the serving Mayor of Cinderford. It's a pity he is not currently in that position. These type of people are still needed to speak out as in the past if we are to resist the latest Donald Trump-type grab of our precious Forest of Dean.  

In my opinion one of the greatest follies of all time is currently being enacted in the name of Cinderford. Firstly the 200 lakeland acres on the outskirts of Brierley is to be covered under concrete, along with gardenless houses and warehouses. The fact that the Forest has many empty warehouses and indeed Cinderford has many sizable housing estates already under construction is not being considered by the town's  district councillors. On top of this economic and climatic nightmare being perpetrated  with tax-payers' funds, they are destroying an excellent college facility at Five Acres and the Wilderness with the potential loss of employment, simply  to bankroll and kick-start the lakeland folly outside Brierley and Cinderford.

If all these millions of pounds which the leader and his district Cabinet talks about ever materialises, then it should be invested in an adequate transport town thoroughfare, which  future employers would   demand.

Finally I have every respect for the other John Harris and his opinions about supermarkets, but by their very nature supermarkets force people to an unhealthy dependency on their albeit cheaper foreign imports – thus destroying our own employment opportunities, along with organic horticulture and farming infrastructure and dissuade people from growing their own produce in their own gardens. We shop most weeks in Cinderford where the Co-operative,   Lidl and local shops provide an excellent service.

– Andrew Gardiner, Ruardean.