The surface water coming from the southern side of Balgownie Road flows like a raging river during heavy rain, straight down our driveway unimpeded by any useful drains in the street and exacerbated by increasing development from higher areas with large, concrete surfaces replacing lawn or garden areas.

Wollongong Council must be receiving substantial increases in rate revenues from all the unit and townhouse development in recent years.

It is about time that they spent some on bringing street drainage up to 21st century standards.

John Young, Balgownie

Response to the letter by Barry Swan, "PROCESS FOLLOWED" Mercury, Tuesday March 19, 2019. How naive to think public opinion is not influence by the media.

Lindy Chamberlain was publicly convicted by the media of killing her baby, before the trial started. She was found guilty and served 4 years before new evidence overturned the conviction. The media have never apologized for their actions.

On Friday (March 15) the Victorian Court of Appeal acquitted a priest who spent a year in jail after a jury convicted him of raping a young boy half a century ago.

Fr John Tyrrell, 80, was ordered to be released immediately after the Appeal Judges found "serious discrepancies between (the alleged victim's) version of events and the facts that were objectively established by the evidence."

As is the case with Cardinal George Pell, the jury convicted Tyrrell on the uncorroborated allegation of a sole complainant. Is this the new burden of proof?

Catholic priests are guilty until proven innocent? Sole complainants are always to be believed?

Even the most ardent Catholic-hater must see where this leads.

Adrian Devlin, Fairy Meadow

As the supermarkets all jump on the PR bandwagon and raise their milk prices to give the impression that they want to help Australia's struggling Dairy Farmers, they maintain the massive, unfair & collusive profit margins that have caused the crisis in the industry in the first place, leaving their customers with the full cost of their 'generosity'

Terry Sugden, Kiama Downs

Father Brendan Lee says some human actions cannot be defended re the Christchurch slaughter.

So how does he defend his biblical god that murders humans at will from cover to cover in his bible.

The greatest slaughter in history would be contained therein if it were true.

The bible also states that god is good AND evil, so can we conclude Brendan that it is ok for your god to butcher humans and be forgiven yet the domain of guilt rests only with humans?

Or, as there is no proof of a god, should we dismiss him as an archaic fantasy? Now we are getting somewhere!

Max Perram, Wollongong