I AM writing in response to the comments I have seen on the Middlewich Community Facebook Page regarding my mother, Sonya Edwards, and the Oscar she was awarded at this year’s event for Services to the Community.

These comments were made by Cllr Mike Hunter and Cllr Jonathan Parry, and they insinuated that she did not work for or deserve this award.

My mother has been volunteering for various events and organisations in this town since 2002.

She is a member of the Middlewich Show Society, Middlewich U3A, Middlewich Community Youth Project and helps with the management of the Wych Centre.

She is also one of the members of this community that helped to re-establish the Middlewich Rose Fete in 2004; and on countless occasions has volunteered her services at the town council’s over 70s parties, FAB Festivals, and baked cakes for friends and organisations for fundraising events.

Her passion for the town and her desire to get involved is what led her into becoming a town councillor in 2007.

Even though she has not been a town councillor for these past four years, she is still volunteering in the town and doing her bit to make this community a better and brighter place, usually with a smile and a cake or two.

The councillors I mentioned above should be aware of how the Middlewich Oscars event operates as it is a town council event, and is advertised to members of the public requesting for their nominations of who ‘their’ local heroes are.

I’m appalled that these councillors would undermine any work a volunteer does for this town, especially when someone has done as much as she has over the years, regardless of whether she was a councillor before.

As I see it, this town could do with a lot more volunteers, and it is comments like this that can dissuade members of the public from getting involved.

When councillors suggest these awards are given out to people on the basis of who they know, rather than the work they have done, it shows that they have a disregard for a town event that is in place to celebrate the good work members of this community do, and is a way of recognising their efforts and showing our gratitude to them.

We should be raising these people up, not pulling them down.

I would therefore like to ask, if after reading this letter, Cllrs Hunter and Parry still believe she did not deserve this award that members of this community nominated her for, and would like to make a public apology to my mother, as they so publicly aired their views on her receiving the award in the first place on Facebook.

Amy Edwards Middlewich