Should demo have been allowed?

WIth reference to the recent demonstrations in Rotherham, it is always difficult for a community like ours to hold differing or competing values in a healthy way.

For example, it is important for us that our citizens should have freedom of expression and voice, and to be allowed to protest. At the same time it is important for our community to be allowed to express concern about the impact that such demonstrations have upon them, whether for example emotionally or economically.

I am led to believe that the police did an excellent job on the day. However, I do wonder whether they should have been put in the position in the first place. Should this parade have been allowed to happen at all? Did it really represent the frustrations and concerns of the people of our borough? Or was Rotherham simply seen as an easy target where community tensions could be subtly exasperated?

Such decisions have been made for a number of years in my original home province of Northern Ireland through the mechanism of the Parades Commission.

This is not to say that their decisions always please people. However, such a mechanism does exist in that part of our United Kingdom, because the sort of conflict of values and interests we saw in Rotherham a few weekends back, were a regular feature of life there.

I have taken to writing this letter in the hope that such a mechanism might be considered and developed here in England, to help generate an environment in which sensible decisions can be made.

S Adair, Haigh Moor Way, Swallownest