Sir.-Tadley residents are puzzled.

They learn from The Gazette that their council has been recognised as a Quality Town Council.

Well done to all who helped earn this accolade.

Therefore, by inference, all must be well in Tadley and with its folk.

Not if one considers the Tesco, non-Tesco saga, then the loss of its one-and-only supermarket for six months, to include a Christmas, and then traffic hold-ups for seven months - and ongoing.

Inconvenience, irritation, expense and loss of trade have been the order of life for so many for too long.

I suppose it must be viewed as part of life's rich pageant to find a council is doing well yet its township is full of non-happy bunnies, albeit with Easter around the corner.

Let's hope nothing else lurks over the horizon.

-Mike Herbert, Wickham Close, Tadley.

Sir.-For many months now, Tadley has had to endure traffic chaos during extensive road improvements.

The disturbance has been major and the work is still continuing.

However, the right-hand side of Mulfords Hill, rising to the top from the south, has recently been opened.

This week, for the first time, I drove up this section only to discover, after all this disruption, that the new road surface is like a ploughed field.

Manholes are, in places, high and, in others, several inches low in the road.

And all this after a multi-million-pound project.

Having driven a great deal on the Continent - Holland, Belgium, Germany and France - I have discovered that these countries seem to be able to lay roads like billiard tables.

Why are we unable to copy this standard of work?

-Graeme Hewitt, Railway Terrace, Mortimer.