OPINION: Letters to the editor of the Newbury Weekly News
Justice has been done over the CIL scandal
Finally, after nine long years battling with West Berkshire Council over Community Infrastructure Charges (CIL), justice has been done.
On Friday, the council agreed to make a refund payment for the charges it levied when we were exempt from paying.
This journey hasn’t been easy, and there have been many tears along the way, but I cannot express how delighted I am to finally be able to write this letter.
This CIL battle has so many similarities to the Post Office scandal. I think that West Berkshire, under the new administration, realised this once I pointed it out, the only difference is in West Berkshire, as far as I am aware, is no one actually went to prison although the threats made regarding prison sentences seemed very real, I can tell you.
I would like to publicly thank several people, without their support I would not have stood a chance in getting justice.
Ex-Conservative councillors Claire Rowles and James Cole were instrumental in supporting me during this difficult time.
Ironically, it was the Conservative administration that allowed this injustice to happen.
Claire herself was a victim of this administration, being publicly removed from all of her committees without her knowledge, as was well-documented by this paper.
Claire is a true inspiration and we need more people like Claire Rowles to stand up for what is right, no matter what it costs them.
Jeff Brooks, now leader of West Berkshire Council Liberal Democrats, has been at the forefront of this campaign.
Since the Liberal Democrats took power, they have kept the promises made in their manifesto.
Jeff, you have never failed to listen to me and have held the Conservative Party accountable many times in meetings, you have challenged officers and even the CEO over this injustice.
Your passion and commitment to me and everyone you represent within West Berkshire is inspiring.
When you say your door is always open, I know you genuinely mean it. I cannot thank you enough.
Brian Quinn – Penny Post – you are just amazing, kind and compassionate and always impartial.
What a fantastic person and journalist you are, thank you so much.
There are so many people who have shown support, it’s impossible to thank everyone individually, just adding your name to my petition or asking me how it was going gave me the strength to keep pushing forward, so please accept this as a personal thank you.
Finally, thank you Newbury Weekly News, without the initial article all those years ago with reference to the former council leader Gordon Lundie criticising his own council, saying they were wrong not to advise Roger McCabe from Lambourn that there were errors in his application, I would not be writing this letter now.
The Newbury Weekly News gives so many people a platform to express themselves through its letters to the editor section, Andy Murrill thank you.
From the bottom of my heart, I thank each and every one of you.
Now it’s a waiting game for the money to arrive in my bank account.
Once again, thank you all.
Maria Dobson
Kintbury
Thank you to all of you who stood up to power
I was really cheered up this week by the news for Maria Dobson and others involved in the CIL [Community Infrastructure Levy] saga.
I was also cheered by a reply from Nigel Foot on the football pitch saga.
In the case of the pitch progress is being made and we are further forward than we were on May 3 last year.
The council have said that their intention is to apply for an FA grant, which should save council tax payers money.
No FA grant would have been available for the Monks Lane project.
Fighting campaigns for issues is tremendously hard work and very bruising.
I think that people like Paul Morgan and Maria Dobson are to be congratulated in their determination not to be flattened by the steamroller that was the the last Conservative administration.
There were also councillors like Claire Rowles and James Cole who stood up for their constituents in the face of fierce bite back from their fellow Conservative councillors who were happy that people were being made to pay thousands for mistakes on a planning application.
Maybe that is the reason that many of those same Conservative councillors from that administration are now ex- councillors.
I would also like to thank Laura Farris, who behaved in an impartial and professional way when I took an issue to her.
We are very quick to criticise politicians, but sometimes we should be prepared to say well done and thank you.
Ian Hall
Ashampstead
Taking money from The Downs is stealing
I grew up in Hermitage and went to The Downs School, Compton, from 1965 to 1970.
I enjoyed my time at school – very strict, but fair and with good teachers.
It made me the person I am today.
I have done OK – always paid my way, so I was really upset when I heard that West Berks Council plans to claw back nearly £500,000 of the funds that the school and parents had raised with hardworking fundraising over three years, which they had done for their school.
West Berks Council in my view are stealing the money. It’s a modern day Dick Turpin. Surely this cannot be legal.
I have a very dim view of West Berks Council anyway – their planning department, parking charges and Faraday Road (Newbury Football Club) to name just a few.
As my late dad would say: “If their brains were dynamite they would not blow their hats off.”
Could the last person to leave West Berkshire please switch the lights off.
Paul Wernham
Valley Road, Newbury
What happens when we hit net zero target?
I’ve been asking this question for some time and thought maybe your readers could help.
Can anyone tell me what happens if/when we hit our net zero target in 2030?
Much fuss is made of the ‘urgency’ of the situation, so once we’ve despoiled our prime farmland with huge solar farms – the most recent likely version to be an eight square mile installation of 4.5m-tall panels – and built huge numbers of pylons that even the Greens admit are unnecessarily and hugely destructive to carry offshore wind-power, what happens then?
Mr Miliband now tells us that we won’t save anything on our energy bills, Ofgen tells us that we can expect gas prices in towns to at least double through falling demand, cheap EVs from China will have utterly destroyed the European car and steel industries, Congolese children will still be digging lithium – and we’ll be in net zero. Hoorah.
But nobody in power dares admit that it won’t make a blind bit of difference to global warming. Why not?
Stephen N Price
Stanmore
Why do many cyclists ride through red lights?
Can a cyclist please explain to me why so many of you simply refuse to stop when the traffic lights are red.
Do you not think this is putting you and other people at risk?
Brian Houghton
Newbury
Let’s get together and save historic Swan Inn
Like other residents of Great Shefford, I am concerned at the doubtful future of our local pub.
Firstly, let us dispense with this ‘The Great Shefford’ nonsense.
Renaming The Swan Inn as such was an attempt by the previous landlord, Joshua Khan, to be ‘on trend’.
Similar examples of this latest pretentious fashion can now be seen at the former Bell at Boxford and The Five Bells at Woodspeen.
The fact that a local Facebook poll produced a majority in favour of the change in Great Shefford suggests that many of the voters had no sense of history or tradition.
A name like The Swan is very appropriate for a riverside pub, although I have never seen that noble bird on the River Lambourn.
In any case, most official documents still list the pub under its original name.
Our local owes its existence to the fact that the ancient highway from Oxford to Salisbury crosses both the road from Newbury to Lambourn and the River Lambourn at this point.
According to the Berkshire Family History Society, The Swan has operated as a pub since at least 1752, but it would have been in the coaching era that it came into its own.
Although never a coaching inn like The Bear in Wantage and The Three Swans in Hungerford, it operated as a posting house where the coach horses were exchanged for fresh ones.
An early 20th-century photo shows the range of stables at the front where the bus stop now stands, as do the early Ordnance Survey maps, and after the demise of the stagecoaches in the mid-19th century the publican here also ran a substantial racehorse training yard from the premises.
When I moved into Great Shefford with my family in the late 1960s, The Swan was a vibrant village inn owned by Courage Brewery of Reading and run by Ken and Rita Davies.
My aged father Harry often played cribbage there, and a number of games with an American visitor called Earl Sissons led to an all-expenses-paid invitation to visit him and his family in Maryland.
This Harry did at the age of 85.
It was that sort of pub – a real social centre for all.
After Courage were forced by law to divest themselves of most of their pubs, The Swan was leased by Eldridge Pope of Dorchester and run by a very sociable young couple called Kevin and Sue.
This was probably the pub’s zenith; from then on it went downhill with frequent changes of owners and licensees.
After being badly flooded again in 2007, it was closed for something like 18 months while the tenant tried to renovate it himself – without success.
Joshua Khan, who also ran two other local pubs, spent a lot of money turning it into a gastropub, and although he was very community minded, especially at the time of Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee, his tenure unfortunately coincided with the Covid pandemic.
The Swan closed in October 2023 when Joshua’s company which leased it went into administration, and it is now on the market freehold for £650,000 plus VAT.
There are fears among local people that the premises could be either converted into a private dwelling or demolished.
This latter fear is unfounded; The Swan was declared a Grade II-listed building in 1951.
However, conversion into a private house or flats could well happen unless the community gets its act together.
As well as being Grade II, The Swan was also listed as an Asset of Community Value (ACV) some years ago, but the parish council appears to have allowed this to lapse.
At the annual parish meeting in May some of us lobbied the council to apply to West Berkshire Council for this listing to be renewed, but so far there has been no announcement as to progress.
ACV listing would impose a pause on a sale for up to six months to allow the local community a chance to raise funds and submit an offer to purchase the property.
A building the size of The Swan would make a splendid small hotel.
I have never been on the second floor, but I imagine that there would be plenty of space for letting accommodation.
The Tally Ho at Hungerford Newtown is a smaller building, but they have three en-suite rooms on the upper floor.
And being a hotel would not preclude The Swan from acting as a local pub.
There are plenty of such places in the country; Annabel and I recently spent a night in the Half Moon Hotel in the centre of Sherborne.
Although it has a number of rooms for bed and breakfast accommodation, there is no better indication that it is a genuine local boozer that the fact that, being Euros final night, the bar and dining room, like every other pub in the town, was absolutely jam-packed with football supporters!
Our pub’s position at a crossroads on a main north/south route and close to a motorway junction is (or should be) a godsend, and as a hotel it would attract more business than as just a pub, which would be beneficial to the village and the surrounding area.
When The Tally Ho was sold to property developers in 2012 and threatened with conversion to housing, the locals got together, lobbied the planners to reject the application, formed a company, raised the money, bought the pub and re-opened it.
I purchased a share and helped with the refurbishment – I am prepared to do the same again here.
What about the rest of the community?
Roy Bailey
Great Shefford
