It has been much better in Cornwall.

How lovely it has been taking walks in the countryside and on the coast while the lockdown has been in place. Until recently it has been noticeably cleaner where litter is concerned and the air much better for me being asthmatic. It reminded me of how things were in my childhood when people were more respectful of our environment (leaving litter anywhere would not have entered anyones' mind!) and visitors were far fewer, coming only in the school summer holidays.

The notion that we must have the thousands of visitors for our economy is just not true, a vast amount of holiday business is owned by large companies not by locals. There has been less and less respect for our beautiful coastline in recent years and people (locals and visitors alike I think) have no regard for the fact that rescues from sea and cliffs etc costs thousands of pounds. Funded by charity.

I think there should be money spent on street and beach wardens to fine people for littering, it has been a real blight on our landscape and fines should be in the thousands of pounds. It is time to take control of society's irresponsibility , it is obvious that there are a great number of people who seem to think that everything is someone else's problem, whenever did that become the case!!

I also think that we cannot go back to the 'binge drinking' culture in our small towns, where people expect our paramedics, police and hospitals to take responsibility for them, whenever did that behaviour become considered socially acceptable! Bars, nightclubs and pubs need to take more responsibility for their actions, I have been a publican and believe it is still illegal to serve someone who is drunk? (Correct me if this is not so anymore, ).

Our Council also needs to look at car park charges, which have become ridiculous. We no longer stop in some of the coastal towns for lunch/coffee when visiting for another reason because of the charges. How many others also do that? It seems to have been forgotten that the vast majority of locals are on very low wages. If we want our towns to thrive people should be encouraged to stop in the towns to spend money in the small shops.

Perhaps, as in some other countries, part of our council taxes could be kept from each community to be spent on whatever the people of that area deem important? It seems to work in other countries and as long as a small minority of the council were not allowed to override the majority decision it could be positive.

This is surely a time to change the downward spiral of our lovely county and make sure it stays as beautiful and precious as it is.