Letters, contributions and comments sent in from Times’ readers this week.

We are in the majority

Maggie Chambers, address provided, writes:

I was shocked to see Cllr Krupa Sheth's response to the timely article in the Brent and Kilburn Times on asphalt pavements.

She says the anti-asphalt lobby are a minority.

We are not a minority - people who "like" asphalt pavements are in a minority.

In our petitioning , maybe one person in 30 said they like asphalted pavements - or as one person said - "I would rather have well maintained paving slabs but that's not going to happen."

We knock on every door - it isn't selective of any group of people - and pretty well everyone can't wait to sign.

Notice Hackney where they are responding to residents' requests to have paving slabs reinstated.

We aren't talking money here - just that paving slab pavements are what the majority of people prefer.

And how can Cllr Sheth say it lasts better - look at the pavements near Roundwood Park.

Will the council keep renewing tarmac pavements?

If they don't, this is what people will have to put up with - whereas slabs last pretty well for ever and just need a rolling programme of carbon free maintenance.

And pretending asphalt is a low carbon option is plain disgraceful.

We are talking thousands of miles of diesel lorry movements apart from the making and laying of the asphalt.

We would love new slabs but in the interests of the climate emergency, we are happy to have re-laid slabs. Why can't the companies contracted to do the asphalting, re-lay slabs instead?

On the subject of what we value

Trevor Ellis, Chalkhill Road, Wembley, writes:

I would like to respond to the 'View from the chamber' comment section in the Times, February 20, 2020 by Cllr Butt.

Isn't it strange, how people, tend to care about things that they value and that which they don't?

For instance, a gentleman owns a car, it's a BMW 3-Series E30, it's 36 years old and arguably, looks out of place, in comparison, with up-to-date cars.

Nevertheless, the owner clearly values it, and along with regular check-ups keeps it going.

Brent North is 46 years old and is clearly useful, after all the land serves as home and a workplace, consisting of, various outlets which most residents use for their benefit.

The precious land upon which many residents, work, live, play and rest, is increasingly neglected not only by the residents who drop litter but by the local authority.

That can be seen by miles of broken, misaligned pavements, slipshod laid tarmac that is laid out in a slipshod way, with lumps and bumps from one place to another.

Social housing is consistently poor in quality and that also extends to the people who manage them.

The endless trail of cigarette butts throughout Brent North reveals the negative influence and damaging effect that decades of misplaced values on the part of Labour and the Conservatives centrally and locally is having upon residents and the environment.

If the owner of the aforementioned BMW car, treated it like the land we live on and evidently take for granted, it wouldn't last 36 minutes, let alone years.