Despair building over cheap labour

After nearly 80 years in the building industry my family is slowly winding down in this area.

My Grandad was a master builder who employed many men from Walsall and Bloxwich and I myself have been in the field of ceilings and partitions for the past 20 years and consider myself at the height of my profession having travelled the globe teaching this area of the building industry to other less fortunate people.

So imagine my disgust when I pulled onto the car park of the new Walsall College and proceeded to the portable building of the main contractor to enquire about some work – only to be told that there wasn't any, yet the size of the job suggests otherwise.

On leaving the said office my partner and I spoke to another person working on the site and were told that there were mainly Polish workers doing my job with a couple of qualified men watching over them.

I feel I have not only been let down by the Government but also by the council I pay taxes to. Why oh why doesn't someone listen to the normal working class person instead of burying their heads in the sand. What has gone so wrong that I can't even find work in my home town because I want to earn a decent wage and not work for peanuts.

Most of the jobs that I have been on recently since this influx of certain immigrants, have had to be put right and back to a better class of workmanship because the standard is far lower than that of a qualified worker or time-served man, so where is the sense in all that? More expense.

Spencer Wild, Lydford Road, Bloxwich.