OPINION: Letters to the editor of the Newbury Weekly News
Bin collection survey is way too many pages
You recently reported on the three-weekly bin collections by the WBC and their desire for tax payer feedback.
A day later than they quoted in your report, the survey is now on their website.
https://www.westberks.gov.uk/article/39487/Consultation-and-Engagement-Hub
An appalling piece of window dressing; it needed to be one or two pages at most; instead it’s around 20-odd pages you have to plough through.
I did make it to the end, even getting past the gender identity, which WBC consider relevant on black bin collections.
I’m sure the majority who click this link won’t be inclined to plough through to the end, and WBC therefore, won’t get a truthful outcome.
They need to withdraw the current one and issue one two pages long to get a more meaningful survey.
Gerald Jones
Peasemore
Can we have a memorial to poplars?
I’m sure that many people who have grown fond of the rows of lovely poplars that fringe Stroud Green will be very saddened to learn that they are to be felled.
Although no doubt this is necessary, and they have lived their normal lifespan, they will be sadly missed, not least by the many people travelling past them on the way to the races.
Our late Queen, of course, being a devotee of horse racing, will have been very familiar with the scene.
Do you think it would be possible to have some memorial to them, maybe by a landscape painted by a local artist?
Perhaps to be displayed in the council chambers or at the racecourse?
Recently, I came across a beautiful poem by William Cowper which I’d like to share with all lovers of trees, called The Poplar Field. Here is a part of it:
The poplare are felled. Farewell to the shade,
And the whispering sound of the cool colonnade.
The winds play no longer and sing in the leaves,
Nor Ouse on his bosom their image receives.
Twelve years have elapsed snce I last took a view
Of my favourite field and the bank where they grew.
And now in the grass behold they are laid
And the tree is my seat that once was my shade.
I’m a regular reader of the Newbury Weekly News and wish it many more years of good reporting.
Carol Allin
Epsom Crescent, Newbury
It’s so hard to enforce 20mph speed limits
Please let me through the pages of the NWN, send my heartfelt sympathy to the residents of Argyle, Derby and Hampton Roads.
If they think putting up signs will be an end to their woes they are going to be sorely disappointed.
I have, as some regular readers will know, long been an advocate of 20mph speed limits in residential roads and the response I get is totally negative.
The police refuse to enforce 20mph and the council do not have the power to enforce (so they tell me).
I have been threatened and abused just for standing in the road with my camera phone.
Community Speedwatch insist on one having at least 20 active members before a group can set up.
After you have joined you can buy signs starting at £70 and a speed camera costs £850.
When you have done all that there are numerous other legal loopholes, like having to stand at least 100 metres from the offenders, with at least three people wearing high vis jackets.
The alleged offenders must be clocked three times before any action will be taken.
Richard Baker
York Road, Newbury
We need somewhere to recycle blister packs
When my wife and I read the letter from Diana Mudge-Davis (Newbury Weekly News, September 26) our first reaction was a heartfelt ‘hear hear’.
Both of us consume a lot of medication which is provided in blister packs and since Superdrug in Northbrook Street closed we have collected enough blister packs to fill a reusable supermarket carrier bag.
We have tried various other Superdrug branches in our travels, but the only one we have found (so far) which accepts blister packs for recycling was in Taunton (not, I admit, an exhaustive search).
A web search for blister pack recycling offered a Boots branch at Calcot – a 23-mile round trip, so the environmental cost of going there would, I fear, be more than the benefit from recycling the blister packs.
On an allied topic, West Berkshire is an island of inability to recycle aluminium foil – the surrounding local authorities can all manage it, so how long will it take for West Berkshire to catch up?
To refine one kilogramme of aluminium from its bauxite ore takes 20 times as much energy as it takes to recover the same amount from scrap aluminium foil (dishes, trays, foil wrappings, covers from tubs of margarine...) – more global warming.
The last time we disposed of a significant quantity of aluminium foil, we took it with us when we went to visit our daughter in Somerset, and paid a visit to their local recycling centre, who were able to accept it, rather than (as West Berkshire told us) having to put it in landfill.
Ian Park
Pyle Hill, Newbury
Town’s pavements are in such a dreadful state
I have just returned from visiting my aunt in Kingsland Grange and took her for walks with her walker from there along Andover Road and the pavements are in a extremely bad state and need attention.
The corner of Kingsland Grange/ Andover Road is dreadful and particularly needs attention. I hope these can been fixed as soon as possible.
Maggie Wright
Paphos
Little cause for joy in closure of coal facility
Our net-zero fans must be celebrating.
On Monday last week, the UK’s last coal-fired generating station finally closed down.
However all was not joyous tidings, it was also revealed that their efforts have now claimed first place for Britain among western nations in the price of our electricity.
Our electricity cost is now four times the price per unit paid by our American friends thanks to our reliance on windmills and solar panels.
Tom Weller
Brightwalton
Was Northcroft plan in Lib Dem manifesto?
I have written numerous letters on the vexed subject of sports and governance at West Berkshire Council.
Now we learn that sporting facilities are being removed at expense to the public purse to provide studios in a sporting facility that is subsidised by council tax payers.
I wonder whether that was in the Lib Dems’ election manifesto of 2024?
The former council member responsible for sports had a really good idea which was to have a forum for sports users of council facilities, ie squash players, gym users, swimmers and football to interact with the council.
Amazingly it never came to fruition.
It would have been a democratic forum; the officers would never allow the Liberal Democrat councillors to do that.
I should say that a few years ago I used to swim up to 6,000 metres a week at the Northcroft – I refuse to swim there now because of a practice I regard as unsafe.
If I do swim it is at the Kennet, which I regard as much better run.
In the meantime I would remind Mr Brooks and Mr Foot that the Lib Dems promised an enhanced stadium and facilities at Faraday Road.
This was along with cheaper parking in conjunction with town and parish councils.
Ian Hall
Ashampstead
