THIS week's newspaper is a reflection of what makes our community such a special place to live. It's full of examples of people who work selflessly to make their community a better place.

Over the Bank Holiday Weekend, we had the carnival in Ledbury, enjoyed by around 10,000 people, while even more are estimated to have attended Upton's "best ever" Water Festival. There were also a host of well supported community events, like those in Dymock and Welland.

Unfortunately, there are also examples of the type of behaviour which is still all too often a blight on life in our market towns, especially at weekends.

In Ledbury, there was a particularly nasty brawl during the Country Music Festival at The Feathers, the kind of incident that was all too common in the town a few years ago but has not been such an issue in recent times. Fighting also blighted the Water Festival in Upton and, in Malvern, vandals left a trail of destruction in Rose Bank Gardens.

To his credit, West Mercia's new Chief Constable Paul West was so concerned by some of the recent publicity about policing in Upton that he visited the town at night to see for himself, but concluded that it was the quietest place he had been to at pub turning out time in 25 years of policing.

He urges local people to put their concerns in context.

It's no doubt true that we don't suffer high levels of crime but that makes that crime which does take place all the less acceptable to the community and that is why policing levels in the market towns will remain an issue.