AT the public meetings in February, the then chief executive of South Worcester-shire Primary Care Trust, Mike Ridley, promised that Malvern should get its new hospital by 2008.

As we went to press last week, it was announced that Mr Ridley will be leaving his position and so will not be here to keep that promise.

So where does this leave the hospital project? The fact is, very little visible progress has been made since the public consultation ended.

This week Pat Merrick, chairman of the hospital league of friends, has said the best chance Malvern has of getting a new hospital is to build it ourselves.

Loath though we are to let the PCT off the hook, we think she may be right.

The offer of land behind Lower Howsell Road as a greenfield site presents a realistic opportunity to achieve this.

After all, the community is in no worse position to manage such a project than the PCT, neither has any money! The community at least may have the will.

Personally, I was against the ban on hunting. As a country person, I grew up with the tradition and bizarre though some of the rituals may appear, fox- hunting was an efficient way of controlling the fox population.

One of the problems with bad laws is that they can lead to unintended consequences.

While hunts are well within their rights to try and 'test' the law, the latest scheme being tried by Ledbury Hunt of using dogs to flush foxes out for a bird of prey is all a little bit too medieval and hardly better for the fox than a quick kill by a pack of dogs.