We are often told to make sure we lock sheds and out buildings to protect valuable garden equipment from disappearing.

It saddens me to say that we have a malcontent in Great Saling who has a strange fascination with vandalising and stealing banners.

In the last year there have been at least seven such incidents in the Salings including the vandalising of our village fete banner which stood on the village green.

It was used as target practice by someone with a small armoury of bricks.

All of the other incidents relate to banners warning of the planned new town west of Braintree that would destroy our villages.

They were paid for and erected by like minded individuals who are opposed to the idea of landowners and speculators bent on covering the area with concrete.

They are part of an “awareness” campaign and are only temporary, unlike the thousands of new buildings, vehicles and roads that would leave a permanent scar on this beautiful part of North Essex.

Some banners that were stolen, along with their posts, were on private land and as such should be treated as theft.

By Colin Davidson of Woolpits Road, Great Saling