Dear Editor,

If anything has struck me as a real positive this last year, it is how the internet and social media has revolutionised so much, mostly for the better.

Of course I still rely on my trusty copy of the Gazette each Wednesday, but the complement of timely alerts on twitter and Facebook (often on matters that really need a rapid response), and the opportunity for real time interactivity is hard to beat. And the Gazette has been to the fore on traffic issues, flooding and other time-critical matters.

One area I find it a pity to be living still in the past is that of ‘Letters to the Editor’.

More specifically those that stray from the informational into the area of debate. Inevitably there is, at the very least, a minimum two-week turnaround between post and reply, if there is one at all, or if anyone can remember what it was originally all about.

Recently there was a letter about the County Council Cabinet ‘effectively stealing’ (if, confusingly, within the law) from Ross. There was also unfavourable comparison with treatment meted out to other Market towns. I must say I was intrigued at the very least. But before ‘rising up’ metaphorically or literally as called upon to do, I would like to know a bit more, and preferably in the same public debating forum as this has been raised. I may have missed them, but I did not come across any counter arguments in that edition of the paper, all I did find was another letter that at best could be deemed partisan.

The letters page can, and should, be used for any and all items of public interest, but as a pulpit for political rhetoric it struggles to serve the public interest in such ways.

Peter Martin, Ross