SIR

On Tuesday this week at 2pm in broad daylight a scrap metal merchant came to our street in an old brown pick up truck with a loud hailer on the cab roof.

I was out but as I approached our street off Wonastow Road on my return I noticed the scrap van at the end of our road stopped with part of its load unsafe.

I noticed a cooker on the back that looked just like our new one. I got home and went around the back of our house to rear entrance and there where our new cooker had stood was nothing.

I realised that the cooker on their van was ours. I tried ringing the police, impossible, all too busy to answer 101.

I drove to the police station, one young lady half dressed in uniform, a community bobby, who took my details on a scrap of paper. No police but plenty of police cars. Later at home, fed up having driven all round Monmouth in search of the scrap man, I got a call from PC Evans who wanted the reg number of the truck. I don't have it but you might?

Apparently scrap merchants have to be registered with the local authority, PC Evans told me these guys aren't, so why are they allowed to travel throughout Monmouth? Times are hard and it seems to me that we are losing the plot, surely our community can stop this from happening?

Rosie Clarke,

(Monmouth)