Letters, Comments, Complaints Policy and Privacy Statement

Published on: 3 Apr, 2021
Updated on: 3 Oct, 2023

The Guildford Dragon NEWS welcomes readers’ letters and comments.

We regard our provision of a forum for debate on local news and current issues to be a key function.

Letters and Comments Policy

Letters should be submitted by email to: guildford.dragon@gmail.com. Comments should be submitted via the “Leave a Reply” feature which can be found at the end of each article.

All letters and comments are moderated before publication and may be rejected or edited without explanation. Editing of comments and letters is standard practice for newspapers and is only done to: correct errors of grammar and English, correct factual errors, add clarity and readability, reduce length, moderate language, remove gratuitous personal insults and content that might be considered legally defamatory. It is never our intention to change the meaning of the content or the sentiment expressed by the author.

Comments and letters should be addressed to the editor and not other correspondents who should be referred to in the third person. For example: “I disagree with Mr Smith’s point of view,” not, “I disagree with you.”

Comments may be published as letters and vice versa when it is deemed suitable by the editor. Comments and letters may also be published as opinion pieces.

A name must be given, comprising at least surname and initial, and a working email address provided (these are not shown or passed to any third party, without agreement).

Where anonymity is requested this might be agreed if the editor accepts it is necessary or advisable.

In all cases, the editor may request more information to verify the identity of the sender. Where an identity is unverified a letter or a comment may be rejected for that reason alone.

Once a letter, email or comment is submitted editorial control passes to The Guildford Dragon NEWS. All submissions whether published or not can only be withdrawn by agreement.

Readers are requested to space their comments out so that no one person appears to dominate a comments list. As a rule of thumb, where an author already has a comment listed on the front page, another from the same author will not be published until the comment has dropped off the bottom of the visible list.

The inclusion of links to other sites is discouraged. Unless the editor feels that they are necessary and appropriate they will be removed or cause a comment to remain unpublished.

Letters and comments represent the expressed views of the individual author, not The Guildford Dragon NEWS or any member of its staff.

If submitting letters by email please send the text within the email as opposed to an attached file.

First published May 1, 2013. Last amended October 3, 2023.

Making a complaint

We can look into complaints about items we have published which are in our control.

We adhere to the Standards Code adopted by IMPRESS and can only deal with complaints which relate to an alleged breach of the standards set out in this Code. http://www.impress.press/standards/.

We can only deal with your complaint if you are:

personally and directly affected by an alleged breach of the Code
a representative group affected by an alleged breach of the Code, where there is public interest in your complaint
a third party seeking to ensure accuracy of published information

We are also regulated by IMPRESS, but initial complaints must be made to Martin Giles, publisher/editor in writing at the following email address: mgilesdragon@gmail.com

We will acknowledge your complaint by e-mail or in writing within seven calendar days and will normally respond to your compliant with a final decision letter within 21 calendar days. If we uphold your complaint, we will tell you the remedial actions we have taken.

If you are not satisfied with the final response to your complaint, or if you do not hear from us within 21 calendar days of submitting your complaint, then you can refer your complaint to our independent regulator IMPRESS at the following address:

This replaces our previous complaints procedure and is effective from December 2017.

Privacy Statement

The Guildford Dragon NEWS does not keep or maintain a database of personal data. Email addresses are held within our email accounts but we do not share those not in the public domain without permission of the owners.

Those subscribing to our email alert service do so of their own volition and have control over the emails sent to them. Although we do have access to the addresses of the subscribers we have not used them and would not share them.

Responses to Letters, Comments, Complaints Policy and Privacy Statement

Brenda Farley Reply

December 14, 2014 at 9:34 pm

I thought you might like to know that in your history of Guildford photos the little girl with the tricycle is me Brenda Jean Collins taken in 1935 out side 32 Commercial Road Guildford, my house at that time.

[Ed: Thank you for your comment.]
Esme Packer Reply

January 23, 2015 at 10:36 am

I believe there is a family named Schlee living in Guildford. May I use Guildford Dragon to ask if their ancestors lived in Shanghai, China from 1924-1927? I have several photographs of Robin, Veronica, Philip and Ivo Schlee and I would like their descendants to have them. Their father was Robert Schlee, a tea merchant.
Stuart Barnes Reply

June 28, 2015 at 10:11 am

Nice to see one of our greatest poets, Rudyard Kipling, quoted in the heading of The Guildford Dragon. Very appropriate when we are celebrating our Armed Forces.

The quote was: “For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that – Chuck him out, the brute!” But it’s, “Saviour of ‘is country when the guns begin to shoot” (edited slightly to fit). Ed
Mary Bedforth Reply

June 28, 2015 at 3:26 pm

Few are aware of the death of Kipling’s son at Loos in September 1915, a year into the carnage of WW1. ‘Never again’, they say each time and, ‘We will remember them’.

Much of the jingoism and imperialism in his work lapsed thereafter.

‘After his son’s death, Kipling wrote,

If any question why we died
Tell them, because our fathers lied.

It is speculated that these words may reveal his feelings of guilt at his role in getting John a commission in the Irish Guards.

Others such as English professor Tracy Bilsing contend that the line is referring to Kipling’s disgust that British leaders failed to learn the lessons of the Boer War, and were not prepared for the struggle with Germany in 1914 with the “lie” of the “fathers” being that the British Army was prepared for any war before 1914 when it was not.’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudyard_Kipling#Death_of_son
Chris Culley Reply

November 12, 2015 at 3:43 pm

Building of multi-storey car park near Tunsgate.

Think the pub was (is?) the Yew Tree.
Virginia Goodman Reply

January 28, 2016 at 2:41 am

Was there ever an underground passage from the High Street to North Street, coming out by where Fogwills used to be? I vaguely remember walking through.

It has to be a long, long time ago as I haven’t lived in Guildford for over 40 years.
Averil Garman Reply

January 16, 2021 at 7:09 am

Huge thanks to the vaccinators and many volunteers manning the vaccination centre at G Live. Really well organised and much appreciated.
Bob Leadbeater Reply

November 7, 2023 at 4:24 pm

I have wondered for years what the text was on the boards which replaced the clock during the war. I remember seeing them as a small child (Born Jan 1940) but I couldn’t read!
Barry Jutsum Reply

May 17, 2024 at 9:08 am

I am voicing my concerns at possibility of the closing of yet another Police Station in Surrey – Guildford Police Station and its proposed relocation or its manpower at Mount Browne. At present officers are on hand to deal with incidents within and around the town. They can support each other and the other agencies operating in particular at night during the hours of darkness.

Will it mean that persons coming into custody will have to be taken to other locations thus extra travelling time? Each arrest comes with challenges, such as dealing with witnesses, family members associated with the arrested subject. Again officers time being used up.

Will the new Divisional Police Station have the facility of monitoring Guildford Town from its new location, that is have a dedicated CCTV system in place.

The skill of policing is getting out of vehicles and interacting with the public, this skill is going to be lost.

I suspect that this proposed closure has been brought about because of the mistakes made in purchasing the land in leatherhead and because of the money wasted back in the 1990’s on a new Computer Crime / Intelligence system, that was said to have wasted millions.

Can we trust that this proposal has been thought through?
Anna Windebank Reply

June 22, 2024 at 11:21 am

Please continue to follow the story of the petrol contamination of the water supply in Bramley.

The residents are still battling with bottled water and have no idea:
a. How long this will go on for.
b. How long we have been drinking contaminated water.

The petrol station has been having issues with leakages since 2016, apparently, and yet we have no idea how long our water supply has been compromised. I cannot believe it has only just become a problem.

Thames Water trucks seem to have been parked up by the river at the bottom of Gosden Common for the past few years – doing what? I am not sure.

I feel a good deal of light needs to be shone on this matter.