YOUR LETTERS: July 10 2008
A ROUND-UP of all your letters from the July 10 edition.
Want to air your views? Email us a letter by clicking here or write to us at: Letter's Page, Rugby Advertiser, 2 Albert Street, Rugby, Warwickshire, CV21 2RS.
All letters MUST include full names and addresses to make sure it is bona fide. If you wish for these details not to be published, please state so in the letter.
Hoop-jumping game is simply a farce
You may be blissfully unaware but Rugby residents have now been given a couple of weeks in which to digest and respond to Cemex's draft 81 page Tyre Trial Report - 6 tonnes an hour.
But what possible outcomes can there be, whatever we say? This tick-box sham consultation exercise is merely a way of their telling us what they are doing to us, and is only propaganda with absolutely no element of consultation or engagement.
This hoop-jumping game can only be described as a farce as the Rugby Cement Community Forum sub-group members charged with this 'challenging task' are denied the essential data on plant feed rates, starts and stops, etc.
Meanwhile Rugby Council refuses to allow us access to the publicly-funded hourly data from ambient air quality monitors.
Thus both the Council and Cemex are preventing us from making the necessary comparisons between the stack emissions data and the pollutants collected by the monitors that the Council are supposedly using to protect our health and air.
Over the last ten years we have endless such Rugby Cement related so-called consultations, and even when the council has paid out thousands of pounds on specialists and consultants. Not one jot of difference has been made to any outcome, as Cemex, backed by the local authority and Environment Agency continues in its win-win situation, and Rugby residents lose-lose!
Lilian Pallikaropoulos,
Hillmorton Road, Rugby.
Was this police presence a bit OTT?
I WAS amazed at the photographs on the front of the Advertiser (June 19) of armed police wearing balaclavas SAS style. Was this such a serious incident to warrant such tactics?
Today we must expect to see armed police on our streets, but I will watch with interest to see what charges are brought and the resultant sentences. I am sure this was a minor incident which may have been resolved without robocops armed to the teeth in images reminiscent of the Iranian embassy siege.
E.Williamson,
Eastwood Grove,
Rugby.
Opinion does not bode well
THIS week the Government announced that it would not be pursuing a policy of badger culling to try and halt the spread of bovine tuberculosis. I welcome this proposal, for the evidence is equivocal and does not in any way suggest that a mass cull of the beautiful badger from our nation's countryside would help reduce the prevalence of tuberculosis in the cattle population.
In the most comprehensive research (The Krebs report) into the link between the badger and bovine tuberculosis a test cull was carried out in pilot areas and the actual incidence of bovine tuberculosis increased afterwards. This was, it was explained by experts, because the badger, as a territorial animal, was inhibited in it's movement by other badgers in the area.
After the pilot cull these territorial restrictions were lifted and badgers moved wider and further. This allowed badgers to spread the bovine tuberculosis that infected cattle shed.
Yet despite the lack of concrete evidence and despite the continuing scientific debate between experts in the field, the Conservative Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Rugby, Mark Pawsey, wrote on his blog that the lack of a widespread cull was disappointing.
He implies he would vote for such a cull if elected. I have no doubt Mr. Pawsey is playing to a certain audience with comments like this, but it does not bode well for his putative representation of us in the future if he bases his decisions on opinions, not evidence, and behaves, as Tony Benn once described, a 'weathercock rather than a signpost'.
Mr. Pawsey and all other individuals, regardless of political colour, who seek to represent us, and those who do represent us, should accrue evidence and become knowledgable about the subject on which they speak. To fail to do so lets us all down.
The debate over the future of our nation's wildlife is incredibly important.
We are not the owners of this earth, merely its custodians. Let us all ensure that the decision-makers are fully scrutinised in their important task of preservation for the benefit of our children and their children.
Paul Holdsworth,
Amelia Close,
Bulkington.
Profit comes before service
IT IS a matter of considerable civic concern that three local Rugby post offices are threatened with closure.
Readers will recall that Conservative governments in the 1980s and 1990s oversaw the closure of 3,500 local post offices. Since then under Labour there have been 4,000 closures, and a further 2,500 have been approved.
It is Post Office Ltd's intention that another half of the 12,000 post offices that will remain at the end of the year, should this current stage of the closure programme go ahead, will then also be closed, leaving a network of around 6,000.
Labour has chosen to make a profoundly short-sighted, antisocial Conservative policy its own; careless of the demoralising effect it will have on pensioners, disabled people, and those on low incomes.
The post office is often the one remaining meeting point in many rural and deprived urban areas where all other services have been lost.
A recent Citizens' Advice Bureau survey has found that over half of the over-65s and those on means-tested benefits use a post office more than once a week, and that over half of the over-75s and those on means tested benefits use the post office to pay bills.
More than two thirds of the people that live in rural areas rely on their local post office to buy some groceries. Whilst three quarters of those who currently use post offices walk to them, nearly ninety per cent will have to go by car or bus if their branch closes.
But Post Office Ltd's first priority is forced to be to make a profit, not to serve the public, and that means post office closures.
For all their enthusiasm for local campaigns to save individual post offices, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives share Labour's commitment to a tired private sector dogma, and would do the same were they in government.
There are councils around the country looking at taking over and running post offices - and this is a way forward in the short-term. It at least prevents equipment being ripped out of closed branches while discussions take place with Post Office Ltd. Can we expect such an initiative from Warwickshire County Council and Rugby Borough Council? Our Conservative leaders may wish to comment on this.
While the Green Party would urge councils to take this step, due to councils being financially squeezed by government, they cannot be relied on to keep post offices open in the long term.
It is no substitute for a national, democratically controlled, public service in which the future of local branches is decided by those who work in and use them.
Peter Reynolds,
Rugby Green Party.
Accentuate the positive
WE read over and over again in our local and national papers about knife crime and how the youth are bad. However, on Sunday I was privileged enough to be at Lawrence Sheriff Award Service where many boys aged between 11 and 13 were rewarded for their achievements at school.
I was very proud that my son was one of them, but more proud that most youngsters are lovely, good and kind and the minority spoil it.
Let's have more positive things written about what some youngsters do that is good instead of always looking at the negative.
Karen Blackwell,
Portland Road,
Rugby.
Playgroup will be missed
AS I'm sure you are aware Pennington Pre-School Playgroup is set to close on Friday, July 18 (Advertiser July 3, page 12).
I was given this sad news last Monday as I collected my son. Brett has only attended the playgroup for a short time but now thoroughly enjoys it and is content when I kiss him goodbye which is a nice situation to be in if only for two mornings a week.
For me the decision as to whether and where to take my son at then only two and a quarter wasn't easy as I imagine it isn't for any new mum. As far as I know, my sister's four children all attended Pennington Pre-School Playgroup as I'm guessing many have.
The location it's in now may not be very convenient in terms of space especially exterior but it's only five minutes walk for me which means, like many of us, we don't require our cars.
I am aware that the members of staff have looked at quite a number of properties and had finally settled on another local premises and were all set when it fell through.
It is such a shame to see it close. I, like many, will be sad to see such a well established and well used playgroup go. Finding another one will not be an easy task.
May I take this opportunity to thank the staff for all they have done for my son.
Kerridwen Niner,
New Bilton,
(Full address supplied)
Great coverage in Advertiser
I AM writing on behalf of all the members of Rugby Rokeby Lions Club to thank you for the tremendous coverage you gave us in the Rugby Advertiser of June 19 in respect of our 40th anniversary.
We had a splendid celebration charter night at Dunchurch Park Hotel with over 100 people attending and the article was mentioned several times.
Once again, a huge thank you for the wonderful article.
Michael Back,
(Lions President).
Riotous time at college concert
I WOULD like to send both my own and my family's appreciation to Caroline Adcock and all the team at Rugby College's Performing Arts Group for a riotous time, full of laughter and joy on Monday evening, June 30.
So much hard work was put in to their end-of-term concert on stage and backstage. Money was also raised for the Guide Dogs for the Blind.
Well done to all and we look forward to coming next year.
Lesley McGlinchey
and family,
Pettiver Crescent, Rugby.
Missing Flares
I AM writing in response to the letter someone wrote in your paper on May 15 about bringing back Flares in Sheep Street, Rugby.
I agree. I am in my thirties and loved it.
I know it was not in the best condition, but they had some brilliant nights there and there was never any trouble.
There is not anywhere for older people to go after the pubs close. So bring back Flares.
Sharon Priest,
Abbey Street,
Rugby.
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