WE are writing in response to the article concerning migrant workers. Since January 2005, we have had to put up with foreigners living next door to our terrace house in Wisbech. The first group who lived next door to us played music all through the night,

WE are writing in response to the article concerning migrant workers.

Since January 2005, we have had to put up with foreigners living next door to our terrace house in Wisbech.

The first group who lived next door to us played music all through the night, and despite being told by the agency renting the property that they could speak English, we could not get them to turn it down. We phoned the police and were told: "There's nothing we can do, phone the Environmental Health Department", but they were not open between 2-5am.

Then, in January 2006, a new group of tenants moved in. They were fine for a few months until they decided to turn their back garden into a car workshop. They not only work on the cars, they also spray paint them, which leaves a nasty smell in the air for hours.

They have had numerous vehicles come into their garden and worked on. They also have cars all around in the courtyard that is shared by about 10 houses, blocking other people's access.

We have been in touch with Fenland District Council about the vehicles on several occasions and they eventually sent an officer round to look at the situation. They told the people to stop doing the work on cars, and a man claimed he had only done two cars. We spoke to this officer and he told us that there wasn't really anything they could do accept 'advise' them to stop doing the work.

Mr and Mrs S HARWIN

via email

AS Malcolm Moss stated, 600,000 immigrants from Eastern European countries have arrived in Britain over the past two years, and we in Fenland are at breaking point. All of these extra people and the thousands before 2004, are putting an ever greater strain on our outdated infrastructure.

This very serious situation becomes even greater when authorities are working with outdated population figures when applying for Government funding.

It is a fact that every extra person who has come to live in Cambridgeshire (immigrant or otherwise) in the past four years in effect devalues our county's Government support funding, and our per capita funding for health purposes; because these people are not included in our population figures.

We are told that East Anglia took the largest percentage of immigrants over the past two years, and reported that this will have a big bearing on future council tax increases. When you think, for every 1,000 people over and above the population figures used by our authorities in Cambridgeshire we are £100,000 under-funded on both council and health grants from Central Government.

The Cambridgeshire County Council Research Group give a population figure of 565,700 for Cambridgeshire. That is almost 25,000 below the correct figure; which equates to a £25m under funding to CCC, and it has the same affect on our health authority funding this year also. People who have never lived in law abiding democratic countries find it difficult to accept the rule of law in our country, and if our present situation is not addressed quickly; our forces will be required to come back home to do the same job here.

I fully agree with Mr Moss on this issue.

REG WENN

The Haven

Acre Fen

Chatteris

YOU ask whether we think Malcolm Moss is right in his: "Warnings on influx of workers".

I think he is totally wrong. The figures for immigration bandied about by right-wing tabloids and 'think-tanks' such as Migration Watch do not take into account the number of people leaving the country, nor the numbers of foreign workers who stay here for just a couple of years before going elsewhere to work.

The problem lies mainly with the neo-liberal economy and the labour 'market' which forces workers to compete with each other for jobs. Ever since Thatcher, Governments has slavishly followed this philosophy which has led to many jobs being sent abroad.

He mentions people being priced out of the housing market. Again, the problem here is not with the migrant workers, but with greedy landlords, many of whom have bought property under 'buy-to-let' schemes which force both rents and house prices up.

M MITCHELL

Acacia Grove

March

I AM sorry to say I have to agree with Malcolm Moss, Wisbech has changed a lot within the last year. A lot of conversation you hear around town is foreign.

I would not class myself as racist as there are good and bad people of all nationalities, but I have come to realise that a lot of these visitors do not mix with local people.

Homes that multi-let will end up run down as families move out or decide also to multi-let, then you have around four times more people populating an area that is not designed to take that amount of people.

The only people who seem to benefit from this invasion are the people behind big businesses. There are many advantages to bosses who employ agency staff, no holiday pay, easy to get rid of people they don't want, no redundancy fees, low wages, need I go on?

But I feel if a local business needs 200 staff to make that business run all year round, then those 200 people should be full time local people, and agencies should only be used for busy periods.

KEVAN ASHTON

Via e-mail

AS a socialist I would like to comment on the article about foreign workers.

Fenland MP Malcolm Moss notes that: "People coming to his surgeries are complaining that they cannot get jobs because the labour market for our local factories is controlled by the gang-masters, who favour (along with the managers) migrant workers."

This is a bit rich coming from Mr Moss whose ideological guru, Mrs Thatcher, deregulated the labour market and instituted the most restrictive trade union laws in Western Europe following her victory over the miners in 1985.

Mr Moss also notes that his constituents claim they have been "priced out of the private rented housing market because of the influx of these workers who often live in houses in multiple occupation."

Again, this is a bit rich given that Mr Moss's Conservative government stopped the building of new council houses, a policy disgracefully continued by New Labour. Mr Moss should therefore call on the Government to nationalise all land, and allow Fenland Council to embark on a crash programme of council house building and repair.

Mr Moss is puzzled that five years ago jobs were being done by local people and asks: "Where have they gone in the labour market?"

The answer is simple. These workers have taken early retirement following the receipt of lump sum payments as a financial inducement to give up their unionised jobs.

Migrant workers are not a problem. The capitalists who use them to increase competition between workers are.

JOHN SMITHEE

Kingsley Avenue

Wisbech

I AGREE with what Malcolm Moss is saying.

Having purchased a house in Mount Pleasant Road, I was forced to sell it again after two years, as the property next door was sold and filled to the rafters with immigrant workers. The people were of all different nationalities, the noise was horrendous, as was the rubbish spilling everywhere.

These people invariably speak our language, but prefer not to understand rules, laws or manners. Everyone you talk to has had enough. Also I know of people who are told certain factories only take on foreign workers, and have been unable to get work at them.

M ARCHER

Via email

ONCE again the Conservative Party, in the form of Mr Malcolm Moss, MP, has reacted all too late. I, and the party I represent (UKIP) have been saying the exact words for months.

I, personally, have stated in your paper, and I quote 'You cannot get more than a pint in a pint pot and Great Britain is a pint pot that is overflowing'. This is not racism, this is common sense. Both Mr Jeffrey Titford, MEP, and Mr Tom Wise, MEP, have stated the same over and over again.

We, as a small country, cannot continue taking in hundreds of thousands of immigrants regardless of race, colour or creed and again I emphasise this is not racism, this is common sense. We must divorce ourselves from the European Union and take back control of our own borders indefinitely.

LEN BAYNES

Chair UKIP Fenland

Bradshaw Court

March

WE could all see it about to happen, Poland, Estonia and the rest all about to join the EU and we all sat back and waited for the Labour administration to, quite literally, open the flood gates.

Recent published statistics reinforce that the influx of "economic migrants" has exceeded even the Government's wildest dreams and it is now virtually impossible in today's liberal society to remove these people from our shores.

I understand, and to a certain degree can empathise, with local businessmen as these migrants are an almost inexhaustible source of cheap labour. It is, however, a strange economic move when we have plenty of workshy idlers who would be capable of performing menial duties instead of sitting at home watching satellite television.

When will the Government realise that this country can only hold so many people, we have enough of our own and certainly need no help from former Eastern Bloc nations?

NEIL HUNTER

Burnham Road

Downham Market