If you are going to dunk us all in pessimistic stories of woe for business in small towns like Rutherglen please be sure to offer some balance to your readers with stories of optimism and positivity that also come out of the town.

Thanks to unhelpful stories such as these readers may now think the town has nothing to offer.

Businesses in the town have closed, yes, but there are also established businesses running in the town and we have had new ones opening up in Main Street such as the amazing wine bar Thousand Pound, lovely Pickers Cafe, the very stylish Jack and the Fox, a new bookshop, Atomic Garden for gifts and our own Main Street restaurant Taste opened a brewery and is also expanding its operations.

Any coverage on these businesses? No. It takes courage, brains, a good business plan and bloody hard work to open and run a successful business anywhere and survive and even more so in a small town.

Our family, and many other families, make choices every day in favour of Rutherglen business when we shop and use services and supported the local butcher, the florist, the gift shop Passion Flora, we shop in our IGA, buy fuel in town, buy hardware, go to Parkers, drink wine, eat potato cakes from the Silver Key, get our eyebrows waxed, buy newspapers including The Border Mail, buy stamps from the post office, browse books or stop for a chat with Mr Tapsell, get our clocks repaired (yes, we have one of those), get our hair cut, buy bread from the two bakeries, go for a counter meal or a beer, our children go to the local schools and are part of local sporting clubs and we also happily support businesses in our wider region that are offering quality products and good service.

I am sorry that our town has now lost its only butcher shop for the owners of this business and what they are experiencing at the moment. A business plan that relies on our well meaning but ponderous and slow-moving local council for success will probably run into trouble. 

I read with ​interest David Thurley's letter headed “Get it right on environmental flows”.

​Here we go again on two sets of laws​, one for us, one for you. Mr Thurley states: “Over the past 100-plus years, our activities have caused major environmental degradation of the land and rivers of the Murray Darling Basin". And yet Mr Thurley and his council keep wanting more people to reside in Albury and Wodonga, two big cities perched across the Murray River, polluting it to no end.

These people will not be contented until the hills are covered in roofs of houses and ugly subdivisions. Mr Thurley also mentions about the great Robinvale Classic water ski race in March. Even a very backward small child knows that water skiing and racing boats stir up the water and degrade the river banks more than anything else, but of course it brings in money, “so stuff the money”.

There is plenty of information available from various sources, but we do not need it from councils of any sort. Canberra and councils are the last hiding place for certain types of people, with their usual two sets of laws and hypocrisy to suit themselves.

The case of two sets of laws is free speech. Like David Everist who pointed out his views on the environmental flows, but as usual the few words of disdain as follows, does not help everybody, is not useful, divisive. In other words I quote, if you do not agree with our thinking, do not say anything at all. We do not want to hear it, just in case somebody takes notice, and we most certainly don't want to do that.

As I said, two sets of rules but I think it's coming to an end, as the world moves closer to the right thank God.