FURIOUS farmers will bring Chester city centre to a halt tomorrow when they bring the countryside to town in a dramatic protest.
 Tractors, trucks and trailers will perform a lap of the city as they attempt to force the Government to pay attention to rural matters. Hunting, post office closures and the sorry state of British farming will be on the agenda as hordes of country dwellers converge on the Town Hall Square. 'This is intended to highlight the state of farming and the rural countryside as a whole because it is in total devastation at the moment,' said Tom Houghton, Cheshire coordinator for Farmers For Action which has organised the protest rally. 'The suicide rate among farm-ers is going sky-high.' The rally brings together individuals and members of countryside groups in three motorcades which will proceed from points outside the city, arriving at Chester racecourse at 11am. Following a procession to the town hall, where three short speeches will take place, the rally will end in a lap of the city's ring road. 'We feel we have so many problems in the farming, horticultural and rural sectors - the rural economy, fuel prices, cutbacks to bus routes, and the closure of rural schools, post offices and shops,' said Mr Houghton. 'So we thought we'd bring the countryside to town, link all these people together and unite to show Mr Blair, the Government and any future governments they need to do more for the countryside. 'We will have a number of agricultural vehicles coming. It should be an impressive sight.' He stressed: 'The last thing we want to do is inconvenience the general public but if we do we have to apologise. We have been pushed to this.' Mr Houghton said the rally would be the first of many throughout the country, possibly ending up in a major countryside rally in London later in the year. 'People are under extreme pressure. The time has come when we're going to stand up and be counted,' he added. | 
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