IT baffles me that there are people in this area who view the Eruv plan as being divisive and causing segregation.

If anything, the Eruv will help Jewish residents integrate more into the community.

Asking a question, or submitting a proposal do not cause division, because if you don't ask, you don't get.

However, angry responses, inflammatory internet posts, provocative leafleting, and anti-Eruv campaigning, (including establishing an action group committed to the cause), will cause far more damage than the proposal could have done.

I think the STATE campaigners would do well to examine their motives, because if people are not allowed to ask the questions that are important to them, for fear of vicious backlash, then how integrated and peaceful could we really claim this area to be?

Surely there is a calmer and more polite way of discussing the proposal, without inflaming the issue beyond what is little more than a request for religious tolerance, as it is making Jewish people in this community feel vulnerable and afraid to live here?

Name and address supplied