OPINION: Letters to the editor of the Newbury Weekly News
Please do take your dog poo bags home
I have had enough. On Sunday I removed four dog waste bags from the bus stop at Holborne Close.
I put them in my own bin. (Thanks to the nice dog walker who helped me.) I do not want to make a habit of this.
In future please could dog owners take bags home to their own bin or use the dog waste bins provided by the town council on the footpath right near that stop. (It runs between Andover Road and Meyrick Drive, with a bin at each end.)
Many residents find this revolting.
More to the point, dog excrement can spread toxocara canis which can cause serious illness in toddlers.
Dr Meg Thomas
Liberal Democrat councillor for Wash Common ward, Newbury Town Council
Let’s do what they do with rubbish in Japan
There’s discussion going on about removing some dog poo and litter waste bins (Newbury Weekly News, January 23).
In Japan they have tackled this issue by no longer providing any waste bins.
Citizens are required to take all their litter home with them and dispose of it in their domestic waste. They do and it works.
Everywhere is spotlessly clean.
Richard Jones
Newbury
Surely cash saved from EU can pay for hospital
We should all be furious about the delay to the rebuild of the Royal Berkshire Hospital.
It is now five years since we left the European Union.
According to a bus I once saw, in each of the 275 weeks since leaving we have saved £350m to spend on the NHS.
This should now amount to £96bn, and rising, plenty to rebuild 60 hospitals like the Royal Berkshire.
I seem to recall that Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson were very active in promoting the message of that bus.
I’m sure Nigel is too busy abroad fawning on foreign billionaires, but perhaps Boris has time to tell us where this money has gone.
Or was this promise another of Johnson’s jolly japes?
Dr David Cooper
Garden Close Lane, Newbury
Council tax rise would signal incompetence
As a pensioner on a fixed income I trust I speak for many at the outrageous casualness of Nick Adam’s-King pronouncement that Hampshire’s council tax will need Government permission to increase council tax by 15 per cent (Newbury Weekly News, Janaury 23).
This is incompetence by Hampshire County Council which should be ameliorated by adjustments in services (eg fewer bin collections) or reductions in personnel.
Like Thames Water, these unwieldy organisations are becoming divorced from reality and think that milking the consumer is the answer to papering over all their bloated inefficiencies.
I’d argue for secession to West Berks Council as I live only 50 metres from the border but knowing my luck, they’ll probably be pleading for a similar increase next year if Hampshire get their way.
Tom Brown
Gore End
Older people want to keep Kennet Centre
Thank goodness the council has not passed the Eagle Quarter redevelopment plan.
We in Newbury want to keep the Kennet Centre.
If you had a survey alone for the Newbury people, it would prove that we want to keep the Kennet Centre and we do not want the Eagle Quarter buildings built.
I speak on behalf of the older people of Newbury.
Could the Sovereign old building be an indoor market? That would be nice too.
L Fordham
Newtown Road, Newbury
The Eagle Quarter is unaffordable now
I have been a staunch opponent of Lochailort’s Eagle Quarter project since its inception.
I genuinely believe that there has been a giant miscalculation by these London City-based developers who misunderstand the town and underestimated the robustness of local opposition.
They have been quick to highlight their completed schemes in Reading.
But nobody in Newbury, save for a few newcomers, want this market town, surrounded by the North Wessex AONB, to become a high-rise metropolis.
Perhaps the developer drove round the ring road, saw the BT building, and thought otherwise?
Their antagonistic attitude from the outset has also been imprudent.
Hugo Haig wrote in this paper several years ago that ‘everyone was in agreement’ that development needed to take place (demonstrably untrue), before branding the council officers as a ‘bunch of box tickers’ when the first proposal was refused.
What they have failed to understand is that whilst Newbury residents agree the Kennet Centre is tired, outdated and underused, we would much prefer the status quo to the irreparable damage their proposal would inflict.
Where is the benefit for local people from huge overlooking towers?
From fewer car parking spaces, more traffic congestion and increased pressure on local services?
Local opposition has been right to block and delay this irreversibly damaging proposal as far as it can.
The longer it remains on paper, the more likely it will never go forward.
Borrowing looks set to be expensive for the foreseeable future, the economy is headed for recession, materials and labour costs are inflating, and the housing market appears to be entering a much overdue correction.
As you reported, Lochailort was already unable to provide affordable housing because its margin was so tight and any revised estimate based on current and future economic conditions would, at best, be wafer thin.
It is a huge risk considering the capital intensity of the project.
Even if they appeal the council’s decision and are successful, which is highly possible, by the time shovels hit the ground the whole project would be unlikely to break even.
George Paterson
Newbury
Thank you so much to The Newbury Society
We would like to thank The Newbury Society for helping to protect the historic town of Newbury.
Mr David Peacock has done an excellent job of showing up all the faults of their high-rise storey buildings.
Their high-rise plans will ruin the town centre.
They will dominate and loom over the historic town which has been a 1,000-year-old market town.
The years of having to put up with the noise, mess, rubble, traffic congestion and obstruction, let alone parking space.
Get rid of the Eagle Quarter once and for all.
Bernice Wilson
Croft Lane, Newbury
