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Last year, my partner and I had cause to appeal against the planning approval of a development behind our house.

We completed the appeal application form and paid the £165 fee.

When we arrived at the appeal hearing, however, we found that we had not been listed as appellants on the hearing documents and had not, therefore, been allocated time to present our case to the independent planning inspector.

A neighbour had also appealed and was given the opportunity to present his case, but that was mainly on technical grounds, which were resolved at the hearing.

The independent inspector was on a tight schedule and our attempts to present our case were brushed aside.

We were subsequently advised that the appeal had been dismissed by the then Minister of DEFA, Mr Ronan, on the basis of the independent inspector’s report, and there was no provision for further appeal.

We wrote to the ministerial planning advisor to complain about the failure to advise the independent inspector that we were also appellants.

Not a single word of apology was offered and, to add insult to injury, [a department official] refused to return our £165 fee on the grounds that he had no ‘legal vires’ to do to.

This decision was based on the wording of the Town and Country Planning (Appeal Fees) Order 2013, which states that the fee should be refunded if the appeal is successful, but does not mention any other circumstances, such as ‘administrative oversights’ on the part of the staff of the planning appeals office.

It goes against the principles of natural justice that money paid for a service should be returned if that service is not provided. Surely some means could be found to repay our £165 in these circumstances. Meanwhile, the DEFA should take steps to amend this flawed piece of legislation before it undermines public confidence in the equity of this administration.

B Egerton, Laxey

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You might be surprised to learn that the world’s biggest killer is still hunger.

Hunger promotes illness. It stops people working.

There is enough food in the world to feed everyone but those who are hungry are unable to access it.

It is natural to feel that we are powerless to help these people and that it is not a good time to think about helping them.

If we are honest though, there never has been a good time. When we are young we do not have much to share.

In midlife we may have responsibility to family, a mortgage to pay etc. In later life we have a fixed income and rising costs.

What if there was a way that we could help those desperately hungry people who are trying to survive while we were having fun and learning something a the same time?

What if it did not cost us anything to do this?

The answer is there if you are able to access a computer and go online to the website Freerice.com run by the United Nations World Food Programme, the world’s largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger.

Here you will find a trivia game which raises funds for the World Food Programme while you play it.

There is a vocabulary game but also learning programmes based on art, geography, history and foreign languages.

Each question you answer correctly earns 10 grains of rice for the World Food Programme, a humanitarian organisation working in 75 countries feeding 4.2 million people.

So, what is the catch?

There isn’t one.

The rice is paid for by the sponsors, whose adverts appear at the bottom of the webpage.

The site is suitable for young and old.

It is easy to play and keeps a running total of the amount of rice you have earned.

As most of the website users are American it follows American grammar but this is not really a problem.

Critics might argue that the amount of rice you earn is only of small value but if everyone did a little it could have a big effect and make us pars of a more caring community.

If a hundred people on the Isle of Man used this website for 10 minutes a day it would help us all become smarter and it could pay for about 50,000 grains of rice or more every day.

It is possible to play individually or create a team.

Log onto Freerice.com today. Encourage your family and friends to play.

You will be glad you did.

Ian Price, Turnberry Ave, Onchan

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Re the Independent’s readers’ photos, the solid windowless stone shed at Axnfel (with one L) was one of several explosive stones in the locality, always called ‘powder houses’.

For many years my mother, granddaughter of Captain Killey of Laxey Mines, possessed a large ‘non-spark’ copper key to one of those buildings, but it was lent out for some exhibition or other and never returned.

At the same time this was also the fate of two historic photos.

The first showed the seven siblings from and brought up at Ballaquark on the Ballaragh Road, now a very attractive residence.

The seven children were Tom, John, Ned, Fred, Willie, Edwin and Florrie (at the tail end).

Tom became a master builder and built much of modern Birkenhead, and Florrie married and was the mother of the late Bob Lawson, for many years the popular manager of Isle of Man Bank’s Regent Street branch in Douglas.

I know nothing about the other five. The second photo was of Gerald Bridson participating in the first ever Parish Walk. He was pictured, dressed splendidly in knickerbockers and huge boots. He sported a huge beard, in reality a splendid red, but simply dark in the monochrome photo.

This photo showed G.B. Accepting a drink outside the Shore Hotel in Old Laxey, from the landlord, my grandfather, John-James Moughton. He was holding a glass of clear liquid which I took to be water. However, in fairly recent years, on one of the last occasions on which I spoke to Mr Bridson, I recounted this incident. His response was as explosive as it was quick: ‘Water be blowed boy, it was gin’. On parting, he shouted after me: ‘ I could tell them all of a short-cut, but I won’t.’

Is it probable that there is still a short-cut waiting to be recognised by the Parish Walkers?

J S McLean,

Baldrine.

abortion

Foetus is part of God’s programme

A foetus.

It has happened there has been a conception. The cutting edge of Gods’ biological reproduction programme.

I have been given life, b the life giver. I also have a soul and the will to live. I am so small it’s a miracle all my components are intact. Now I must grow within my mother’s womb as God intended, a few weeks onwards. I have feelings, a sense of being, a sense of development. There is movement about me and I can sense a constant rhythmical beat. There is a sense of anxiety, something could be wrong, a difficult decision to be made. Perhaps abortion is for me. All unborns do not make it, there are many of us, we might not be born. Lawmakers have determined rights over us, up to 24 weeks now.

I don’t want to be discarded although I am yet small and underdeveloped, I want to be born. I want to be like other babies that are born into the world. Someone could speak for us, it could be you. If you go to school, will you think of me and my uncertain future, I and others like me want a life too.

We want to go to school just like you, we want to have friends and play with them, will you speak for us. Ask your parents and teachers they will advise what you should do.

For the moment perhaps I won’t be born and yet with someone’s determination I could be developed beyond 24 weeks. There is still anxiety and uncertainty but you could help me.

Brian Kerwin, Douglas