OPINION: Letters to the editor of the Newbury Weekly News
Market Place used to be a bustling area
Do you remember when the Market Place was bustling with activity during the daytime?
Handy 30-minute parking.
A convenient taxi rank outside the Corn Exchange and shops rather than a glut of restaurants (some of them struggling to survive).
I walked through the Market Place recently and apart from a couple of dossers, it was just an empty void.
Brian Burgess
Andover Road, Newbury
I’m generally in favour of new Old Town plan
I am writing in a personal capacity to express my general support for the newly-announced development plan for the Kennet Centre.
It addresses the many grave objections to the previous rejected scheme, and is much closer to the design principles which we had always hoped would be adopted.
The buildings are of reasonable height and a mixture of flats, maisonettes and houses of varied architectural design.
In this respect, they should fit in well with the architectural pattern of Newbury town centre, as a market town which developed gradually over a several centuries.
The proposed new storey to the Kennet Centre car park will go some way to allay our fears on parking.
The district planning committee did well to reject the previous scheme, and I commend in particular those councillors who made up the 5-4 majority.
Construction of the Kennet Centre in the 1960s and 1970s was a planning disaster for Newbury, involving destruction of six listed buildings (one being Grade II*), and it was always our hope that any replacement should reflect Newbury’s general character.
These new proposals should do so.
Anthony Pick
Andover Road, Newbury
We want the Kennet Centre lovely like it was
When is the company that wants to redevelop the Kennet Centre going to realise that the people of Newbury do not want it?
What they want is shops and food outlets in the Kennet Centre.
Why can’t they make the centre the lovely shopping destination it once was?
They have lost out on the chance of getting Primark there but what about Asda and Iceland, just to name a couple?
If the Liberal Democrats want to retain their hold on both West Berks and Newbury Town Councils they should once again refuse the development.
Brian Hare
Loundyes Close, Thatcham
Put a limit on number of storeys in buildings
I thought your front page on January 30 was very good.
It seems the developer when faced with such strident opposition had a very well developed Plan B in hand, in case everything went wrong.
Such as councillors objecting.
I do wish the previous Conservative administration at our beloved council had such clarity of thought when faced with the omni-shambles that was the London Road Industrial Estate, especially where the issues of drainage and the football pitch were concerned.
If we want to avoid another Eagle Quarter debacle perhaps it would be a good idea to put a limit in the planning regulations that puts a maximum number of floors that can be built in any one development?
I am reliably informed that our beloved planning officers have overlooked this sensible piece planning.
Perhaps The Newbury Society would get behind this idea?
Last week, coming back from the Vue cinema and walking through the Kennet Centre, I thought that the centre looked old, decaying and almost 1960s and I feel sorry for businesses trying to survive in such an environment.
Ian Hall
Ashampstead
Who would be liable if I fell on icy bridge?
On the subject of the icy bridge connecting Theale and Calcot (Newbury Weekly News, January 23) and the quote from West Berkshire Council.
“It only treats footbridges listed in Appendix S of its Winter Service Plan and where the criteria for treatment has been met. These include Monkey Bridge (Newbury) and Northcroft River (Newbury)”... etc.
I had the pleasure of crossing both these icy, and in places, snow-compacted bridges during the two-week freeze earlier in the month, and they were not gritted.
I’m lucky in that I’m a reasonably sprightly pensioner of 68, but I witnessed people of my age and younger struggling to cross both these bridges that connect Northcroft Leisure Centre to the south of Newbury.
What happened to West Berkshire Council’s Appendix S of its Winter Service Plan here then?
Would West Berkshire Council have been liable if I, and others, had slipped up and broken bones?
Newbury pensioner
Name and address supplied
