OPINION: Letters to the editor of the Newbury Weekly News
Eagle Quarter plans too ugly to be approved
The views of Eagle Quarter from all sides confirm how ugly it would be from all sides.
It’s stated that there were only 92 objections – this is due to apathy, not because the majority support it.
Most people will be horrified once building starts – don’t they realise they’re faced with 10 years of traffic jams/dust/inconvenience if the estimates are accurate, and for what? To let the council off the hook of supplying housing and to make Lochailort £14m perhaps?
How will the ‘build-to-rent’ flats help young families with children who shouldn’t be living in tower blocks, but houses with gardens?
There’s plenty of accommodation around for singles already.
Kennet Centre is not ‘out-of-date and failing’ – it’s actually quite lively (and also warm and pleasant in this cold weather), unlike the bleak canyons of Parkway, and it’s not bad-looking from the outside from all sides either.
I grew up in Deal on the Kent coast – there was a lot of bomb damage left over from the war.
The council wanted to level it for a large car park (so visitors could sit in their cars and look at the sea?).
They were fought tooth and nail by the Deal Society, who won!
The area concerned is now a Conservation Area of old seamen’s cottages, much sought after by Londoners.
You Newburyites need to conserve what’s left here. You’re a small market town still ‘good in parts’. Don’t spoil it.
Joy Nelson
Hampton Road, Newbury
Farmers should protest about land price rises
This week my Facebook page has been flooded with posts extolling the farmers’ protest in London.
Jeremy Clarkson wrote in The Sun: “In the past five years agricultural land has become the must-have accessory for people in suits.
“And investment bankers tend to be quite rich, the prices have gone berserk. Round where I live people have been paying £30,000 an acre.”
The question I have is why are the farmers not protesting about bankers etc buying agricultural land (seemingly for tax reasons) but about Labour’s plans to cut the debts caused by Conservative maladministration of the economy.
In 2010 the national debt was around 65 per cent of GDP and when the Conservatives left office it was over 100 per cent of GDP.
The question about if this debt is to be repaid or serviced without increasing taxation is not one that seems to be asked very much, especially by the protesting farmers.
As an aside, The Observer reports UK cheeses miss out on international prizes after getting stuck in customs; again you wonder why they protest at what a Labour Government have done rather than the actions of a Conservative administration’s actions on Brexit.
Ian Hall
Ashampstead
We won’t return to retail park in a hurry
For many years my wife and I have shopped at Newbury Retail Park. More so since the Lidl supermarket opened.
Imagine our surprise then to receive a £100 parking fine for ‘staying longer than three hours’.
My wife and her sister recently visited the park, spending a fairly large amount of money at TK Maxx, Boots, Hobbycraft, Costa and finally Lidl.
They had no idea that there was a time limit as this seems counterproductive to encouraging people to shop, surely?
The camera-controlled time starts when you enter the park so if there’s a queue, as there often is when it’s busy, you could lose 30 minutes going in and out, parking and then maybe returning to the car a couple of times.
This leaves nine minutes per shop if you went into them all.
At Xmas time visiting two or three shops plus a weekly shop at Lidl could easily take you over this time limit.
Google ‘newbury retail park’ and the second link is ‘Parkopedia’ listing car parks.
There are dozens of one-star reviews there from people who have been similarly caught out and intending never to return.
Not good for the shops surely?
In these days of increasing online shopping, why would a retail park discourage people from shopping for as long as possible?
We won’t be returning anytime soon that’s for sure.
Nigel Fortt
Lambourn
Will there be more blue badge parking spaces?
West Berkshire Council has fenced off the car park by the museum, with the loss of 10 blue badge spaces. Have they offered an alternative? No.
Shame on you WBC. Disgraceful to discriminate like this.
I hope you now backtrack and create more blue badge spaces near KFC. Will that happen?
Sue Bartlett
Newtown Road, Newbury
New road layout is obviously dangerous
The new road layout at Sterling Gardens is an accident waiting to happen; queues forming, people trying to cut down Stanley Road.
Ridiculously, the 20mph sign put up in Stanley Road took three men and a van.
In my view the bridge on Boundary Road should be closed permanently to motorists.
Who approved this? Any sensible human being who knows Newbury would know this is an accident waiting to happen.
Newbury is now very overdeveloped with no thought to the road system creating eventual gridlock and even deaths.
Kathryn Tweddle
Newbury
What market town Newbury needs now
It was so good to have our football stadium up and running again.
It gives the youth of Newbury an interest in the sport and somewhere to go.
All we need now is the Kennet Centre with a new roof and Iceland, Bonmarche, a pharmacy and more individual shops and Newbury will have more visitors and know it is meant to be a nice market town.
Lynda Fordham
Newtown Road, Newbury
Trump knew what the US electorate wanted
The main reasons Donald Trump won the American election was:
a) He promised to solve the illegal immigration problem and
b) The high cost of living.
Whether he manages either or both remains to be seen.
But the main point was he knew what the electorate wanted.
The Democrats didn’t and I’m positive neither Labour nor the Conservatives did.
Perhaps future British governments should take heed.
Paul Jenkins
Tilehurst
Christmas lights should wait until December
With concern expressed in your columns on costs of lighting, it is disappointing to note that Newbury Business Improvement District are now showcasing their Christmas lights even earlier, mid-November – in comparison with Thatcham and Hungerford – first week in December.
No doubt commercial interests in sponsoring will be cited, but that does not help keep Christmas in December?
G Panting
Thatcham
