YOUR LETTERS: June 26 2008
A ROUND-UP of your letters form the June 26 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 If you wish for these details not to be published, please state so in the letter.
Epic journey took 43 minutes
Listen carefully I will say this only once. I believe I have found a way to get from Long Lawford to Newbold on Avon using only public highways, despite the best efforts of the Council and the Highways department to massively disrupt the besieged residents of Rugby.
Firstly, remember, a faint heart will not survive against these Machiavellian minds, only the stout fortitude of the resolute will overcome such odds. Obviously a direct approach to this journey using Parkfield Road will not succeed, that road was closed a few hours after the Council first decided to discuss the prospect of a western bypass for the town, probably before they even arrived at the idea of using radio adverts to constantly taunt us about the possibility of this much under specified construction.
No, I pressed on through the queue at the temporary traffic lights opposite the cement works (little sign of work in progress there) and past the lane restriction by the Royal Oak pub. Once at the poorly sequenced traffic lights at the top of Oliver Street I joined the long tailback of cars up to the traffic island with Leicester Road only to be greeted by a road under repair sign with an arrow on it that appeared to point rather amusingly towards the Council House planning department, and they say Councils don't do irony!
Leicester Road and the traffic island by the Avon Mill pub was its usual log jam of cars, which led nicely onto Newbold Road where both BT and Central Networks had separately dug the road up and planted bollards for a little light amusement.
In all, the four mile journey took 43 minutes, strangely enough that is exactly the same time that it took me to drive from Long Lawford to Wellingborough a few days later!
G C Prewett
Railway Street
Long Lawford
Impossible to phone surgery
PLEASE could you tell me if I am the only person that has trouble getting through to my doctor's surgery for an appointment?
This has always been a problem but it's getting worse. My doctors are in Central Surgery, Corporation Street, Rugby. They open at 8.30am and the lines are busy until about 10am. If you ring before that there's a queue of calls, usually 10 to 15 people in front of you. So if you haven't got a house phone or 10 on your mobile you don't stand a chance. I rang one day last week with 5 on my mobile and just as I got through my credit went so I borrowed another friend's phone and got through then and was offered an appointment in Bilton and then that phone cut out. You can guess how I felt by this time.
Please sort this now.
Name and address supplied
I am growing weary of allotment vandals
Two years ago I held two allotments for 18 months. It was difficult to do battle with the weeds - particularly the invasive twitch - but I battled on, enjoying the solutions and the crops I grew.
It came to the point when I was ready to invest in a shed, fruit trees and shrubs, and I had plans for a polytunnel and laying hens.
I became so disheartened by the level of vandalism around me that I didn't make any of these investments and in fact I gave up the allotments. On a weekly basis people were having their allotments vandalised, in some cases beyond repair.
It became impossible to face the future optimistically and would have been foolhardy to invest any more time and money.
I have now returned to the allotments and have spent a happy few weeks spreading 100 pounds worth of cow manure across my half plot. I am now beginning to regret the time and money I have already invested. Each week another shed is burnt to the ground, tools are stolen, crops are ruined and once happy gardeners are devastated, angry and demotivated.
A place of tranquillity where people escape the pressures of life to productively labour, is being soured by the few individuals who see the allotment site as an easy target - which it currently is.
I wish, again, to invest in my allotment. Without a shed in which to keep the tools I cannot use my bicycle to travel to the allotment. Without a secure site I cannot invest the hundreds of pounds needed to carry out my long-term pans.
Without an allotment I cannot grow the food I want to eat - I simply do not have the space at home. Yet again I have to wonder if I can continue on the allotments.
I would like to propose some ideas for possible solutions to the situation.
1)In the short term the site should be made more secure so that it is difficult for vandals to get into the site, with site surveillance by camera and perhaps a police presence late at night when they seem to attack.
2)In the medium term, for approximately 60,000 the site can be secured. I suggest that the National Lottery, Rugby Cement and other large businesses could match funds with the council to raise money.
3)A longer term view would be a proactive education programme of young people in the schools. I suggest that all head teachers of local schools are involved at this stage and become part of a community education programme. Allotments could be a bridge between generations, promoting understanding.
Kate Essex,
Oxford Street
Rugby.
The real plight of our pigs
In recent weeks, Animal Aid has visited 10 English pig farms in five counties to see whether the pig industry's claims of high welfare were borne out in reality.
Instead of the idyllic images of straw-filled pens amidst leafy trees and bathed in sunlight, we found squalor, filth, death and disease.
Where the industry portrays pigs growing up outside with acres of space to roam, we found dead and dying piglets living in utterly barren, overcrowded pens.
In the promotional images, pigs can root around in the earth. In reality, these inquisitive, lively and intelligent animals often had nothing but a metal chain – and sometimes nothing at all – to stimulate them and help fulfil their basic instincts. While pig farmers plead for the future of 'high welfare' farms, footage and photographs on Animal Aid's website reveal the wretched truth: that welfare standards on typical British pig farms are abysmally poor.
Kate Fowler-Reeves
Head of Campaigns
Animal Aid
Travellers enjoy a free ride
I had the joy on Saturday of venturing to Elliot's Field for a part for my motor vehicle. I must have been foolish to have even thought that it is a retail park, as when I arrived it looked more like a Haven
holiday park!!!
But on closer inspection I realised I was wrong with my presumption that Rugby was venturing into the holiday market, with our lack of beaches and coast lines proving to be a minor issue in the matter.
It was in fact a group of travellers who had decided to brighten up the retail park with caravans, old transits, rubbish and their unruly children, who found great pleasure in making the staff of Halfords' life an eventful one with their foul mouths and no respect for anything around them.
I felt sorry for the staff of Halfords having to put up with it all weekend. So why the travellers were not moved on straight away is beyond me. Have the council or police no backbone, or is it just a free ride into the kingdom of Rugby, and do as you please?
I am sure if I ventured down there with my Abbey Piper 515 in tow, the police or council would have absolutely no trouble in moving me on or slapping a big fine across my cheeks.
In the days of ever increasing price rises maybe we are the silly ones. Maybe it's the travellers who have it right; move round the country and live where you want for free, no charge, squat, no council tax to pay, no water rates etc etc. Maybe we are all the fools for paying our bills, or maybe the council should toughen up and slap a council tax bill on them. Also, if the police checked the tax and insurance of some of these travellers' vehicles I would not be shocked if they found some not to be insured, taxed or MOT'd, yet they get to drive around freely.
And no doubt when they are finally moved from Elliot's field, they will leave it in a lovely pristine conditionl, and none of our taxes will have to be used to clear the filth and mess...yeah right!!!!
Name and
address supplied
Racehorse death isn't sporting
THE racehorse 'Tears of a Clown' is the most recent victim of the Ascot horse racing event when it was killed thus increasing an already large number of horses slaughtered while racing.
It sickens me to see this event portrayed as a fashionable parade of the rich when innocent animals are dying in the name of 'sport' and a huge profit.
Animal Aid released undercover footage obtained from inside a UK horse abattoir - shocking scenes involving young horses and thoroughbreds being killed for the UK trade in horsemeat.
To arrive at that perfect racehorse specimen a large number of horses fall by the wayside and are exported live from the UK into Europe or further afield.
To read more about the cruelty of horseracing in general please contact Animal Aid on (01732) 364546 or see www.animalaid.org.uk
Please try and dissuade
family, friends and work colleagues from betting.
Janet Cummings,
Rugby
The buses have let me down
I thought I would write and explain how I feel about public transport.
I have had to give up my car because of high fuel prices and the running of it. I thought there would be sufficient public transport to get me to and fro to work every day.
How wrong I was.
I live in Lennon Close, Hillmorton, and work in the private sector, caring for a disabled person, and work shifts, Monday to Saturday.
I start my day by leaving my house at 7am, walking three quarters of a mile up Crick Road towards Watts Lane, where I catch the Stagecoach bus at 7.20ish to take me into town. It drops me at North Street and I walk another three quarters of a mile to work. I then work from 8am - 10.30am.
I leave work after my morning shift, walk three quarters of a mile back into town, to catch a Stagecoach bus back to Watts Lane, Hillmorton.
I get home after walking back down the road to Lennon Close by which stage I'm getting tired, my ankles are swelling and my feet are sore.
I have two hours at home before I start my journey back into town. I start work at 3pm, so have to leave my house at 2pm and more or less repeat the same procedure as in the morning.
I finish at 7.55pm, the bus leaves at 8.15pm. If I miss that bus I have to wait one hour for the next one. The bus drops me at Watts Lane. I then walk my last journey to Lennon Close at about 8.50pm, by whuch time I am shattered.
I should not have to walk three miles a day to catch a bus to get into town. I only live about four miles out of town and on a main road, so why is it difficult to get buses to run by my estate before 8am in the mornings, to go into Rugby and run after 6pm in the evening, to come by Lennon Close?
The buses obviously revolve around people who work 9am - 5pm. What about workers who have very important jobs, who work before 9 and after 5pm?
The Crick Road is very, very busy with people travelling to and from Rugby by car, walking or cycling. I'm sure that the buses would be very handy.
Chrissy Wallace-Edwards
Lennon Close
Hillmorton
Buy a bear - show you care
I would like to make an appeal to your readers and ask them to support the 'Buy a bear show you care' promotion being launched this July and August which will help two very special charities; The Princess Royal Trust for Carers and The Children's Trust.
Show your loved-ones what they mean to you by buying a Forever Friends pin-badge from your local Hallmark Card Shop (www.hallmarkuk.com). By donating just 1 readers can choose from four charming and collectable pin-badge designs. All the money raised will be split between the two charities so they can continue to provide specialist support to the children and adults that need care.
The Princess Royal Trust for Carers provides information, advice and support to unpaid family carers, including young carers, through a network of 144 carers' centres across the UK and interactive websites www.carers.org and www.youngcarers.net. A carer looks after a loved-one who is unable to manage without them which can be due to age, physical or mental illness, addiction or disability. Carers do this out of love for the person they care for, but taking on a caring role can often mean facing a life of poverty, isolation, ill health and depression.
The Children's Trust provides education, care and therapy to children with multiple disabilities and complex health needs. Every year The Children's Trust cares for over 250 of the UK's most severely disabled children. Most of the children cannot walk or talk, have impaired hearing or vision or both. The Children's Trust also provides rehabilitation for children with an acquired brain injury. It helps to restore lives after parents have often been told to fear the worst. (For further information please visit: www.thechildrenstrust.org.uk).
I hope your readers will show their support to the 'Buy a bear show you care' promotion and make it a real success.
Claire King,
Actor and Celebrity Ambassador,
The Princess Royal Trust for Carers.
Let motorists have their say
A few weeks ago you published a letter from me, ref:
The Traffic Lights/Crossing, Whitehall Road roundabout.
Last week, June 12, you also commented about this in your Editor's Viewpoint.
I was pleased that you made the comments that you did, as we both put over the view of a very large number of motorists in Rugby. After you printed my letter I was inundated with support. I only had one person object (Mr Bevan: letters). He states that you put yourself in the position of the majority. He is of course right on that point. I would ask Mr Bevan to ask the motorists of Rugby for their view, or as he calls them 'petrol heads', on this piece of stupidity by the council.
You are right when you say that the traffic was moving slowly but I would disagree with your last remark about Mr Bevan's letter. You said that his letter was witty; I would say that it was pathetic and that the motorists of Rugby would agree with both of us.
John Moore,
Gibson Drive,
Rugby.
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Friday 10 February 2012
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