How charming it was to see the Countryside Alliance taking the trouble to buy a half page of advertising in the Argus to apologise for clogging up the centre of Brighton with their tractors.

The apology did not extend to the other benefits these cuddly country cousins have given us townies in recent years.

There was not a morsel of regret for BSE, disgusting factory farming methods, taste-free battery chickens and salmonella in eggs, vegetables smothered in pesticides and live animals shipped for slaughter in Europe.

Hacking away hundreds of miles of hedgerow is another example of money-grabbing by an industry which receives a massive £5 billion a year in subsidies.

-Allan Allbeury, St Mary's Square, Brighton