NOW that the poppy knitting season is out of the way, perhaps it's time to consider the plight of our ex-servicemen and women.

Thirteen thousand of them are said to be living on our streets, as we come towards winter.

Cheshire East Council, Eastern Cheshire CCG with East Cheshire NHS Hospital Trust and Cheshire and Wirral Partnership (mental health) and British Red Cross, should be changing this position.

Many of our ex-servicemen have ended up on the streets because of not only an uncaring government and society, but because they have various levels of untreated Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, therefore a great difficulty in coping with life.

In Knutsford alone, we have Bexton Court and Stanley House which have stood empty, together with The Tatton Ward since 2010.There is also Knutsford and District War Memorial Cottage Hospital, built as a 16-bedded space, initially for ex-Great War servicemen. Its bed spaces also stand empty.

British Red Cross currently inhabits that space, built and supported down decades, by the residents of the 18 parishes, since opening on August 2, 1922. Surely BRC can see the need for giving practical emergency homes and a leg up to help to ex-servicemen and women who are otherwise likely to freeze to death, or go down with pneumonia over this winter?

If they are strapped for cash, they could do what was done during the Great War and put out a call for funds, beds and essential furniture.

I am certain that the local population would respond.

Charlotte Peters Rock

Knutsford