THIS weeks letters to the editor.
‘There isn’t even public transport to our woods and parks’
RACHEL Maclean’s item on climate change reminded me of our Redditch children striking in 2019 to demand that our council declare a climate emergency.
It took a while but eventually Mr Dormer patronisingly, metaphorically patted them on the head and promised a climate change agenda. So! How has he done?
Tree planting: 40 acres plus of trees have been removed and only 10 acres replanted.
Those trees were planted in April instead of mid winter and were not watered so that nine out of 10 have now died.
Ipsley Meadows trees are under threat of being bulldozed, despite the council receiving a biodiversity grant for the site to be replaced by a car park for the new cemetery.
Education – the Countryside Centre that used to be full of fun educational nature exhibits and a whiteboard for recording rare sightings on Arrow Valley Lake is gone – replaced by a basic café with not even information boards of what might be seen.
The warden-led walks to learn about wildflowers, birds and insects no longer take place.
There isn’t even public transport to our woods and parks.
Buildings – Demolition causes major carbon emissions yet Mr Dormer intends to demolish our library, Community House and our railway station.
Brown bins – promised to be reinstated at the last election but for the last three years, and still now we cannot get a brown bin creating hundreds more car journeys to Redditch tip.
Some 80 per cent of the UK population now recognises climate change as a major threat to us all.
What is the matter with our council that they are failing is so completely on such an important issue?
M Bish, Abbeydale
‘Redditch Council has failed miserably’
WHILST sealing the library’s fate, County Councillor Marcus Hart tried to convince there was never a closed ‘done deal’ between heads of two authorities, the whole process had been democratic and transparent.
As he and colleagues gave County Council approval one laughable but very insulting aspect is the provision of just one blue badge space. How many badge-holders are there in the town?
Coun Hart admitted ‘the extra 100m to the Town Hall posed no difficulty to my able-bodied healthy self’. It’s actually 250m with a sharp incline over 50m, then 250m with a marked slope back towards Church Green and shopping centre.
For those having difficulty walking, or parents with buggies and other little ones – not a pleasant prospect, especially in rain, wind, icy conditions.
If WCC cannot get that detail right after all the scrutiny they claim has been done, how much confidence can there be for regeneration funds, public property assets worth millions.
WCC’s Equality Policy commits to ‘advance opportunity and promote the values of inclusion and belonging to everyone in Worcestershire’ yet none of the committee/panel/ scrutiny/cabinet meetings were signed – excluding the deaf/hearing impaired.
Redditch Council has failed miserably to take residents with them.
Whilst defending itself against claims there were serious flaws, WCC congratulated itself over its public consultation.
All that was done was to manipulate the objections raised, pretend to have listened and then do what was intended in the first place.
A Godwin, Redditch
’80 per cent of oil produced in UK fields is exported’
I NOTE that our MP Rachel Maclean in her column in The Standard recently said regarding the Government issuing new licenses for oil and gas exploration in the North Sea, ‘Oil and gas will play a pivotal role in our energy security for decades to come and we are better off producing it at home.
‘Anyone telling you anything different isn’t being straight with you.’
She also says that blocking these licenses would make us more dependent on expensive foreign imports, driving up prices.
I wonder if she knows that the companies which will be involved in this (some of which are owned by other nations) operate in a free market and are under no obligation to sell any oil and gas produced to UK energy suppliers and will always look for the highest bidder.
At the moment, 80 per cent of oil produced in UK fields is exported and there is no reason to think this would change.
The Prime Minister is quoted as saying the new licences will reduce our reliance on states such as Russia. Even before the war in Ukraine, only four per cent of our gas was imported from Russia.
Rachel Maclean also quotes figures from the Government’s Climate Control Committee about how gas and oil will still provide more than half our energy needs by 2035 and 24 per cent even in ‘net zero’ year 2050.
The same Committee has also said that it is about 28 years from the issue of an exploration licence before production actually begins so if this is the case we may expect to see the new fields operating from about 2051.
Rachel Maclean has got it right that someone isn’t being straight with us about this issue but I don’t think it is anyone she had in mind.
T Morton, Crabbs Cross
‘Strange, things I’ve read in the local papers recently’
A FEW of the, to me at least, strange, things I’ve read in the local papers recently.
Worcestershire County Councillor Marcus Hart, ignoring the overwhelming majority who expressed an opinion, either in the library consultation, at public meetings, or at the ballot box, claims “no one can say they have been ignored”.
A spokesman for David Wilson Homes claims a hundred new houses (causing probably at least a hundred additional cars) will not “result in an increase in traffic” in an area with already congested roads.
West Midlands Railway, whilst seeking to curb fare dodgers, is abolishing ticket offices.
Headline: “Hub scheme is given the thumbs up”. What? Has Marcus’ putative ‘silent majority’ finally spoken? No, RBC’s planning committee, the source of much civic mischief in this town, has rubber-stamped the mistake.
Conservative councillors laud our parks when converting one of the most picturesque parts of the town’s parks (Ipsley Meadow) into a municipal cemetery. “What’s not to love about parks?” asks Coun Beecham – not enough graves apparently.
Matt Dormer, astutely referring to ‘parks and open spaces’ (which of course includes operational cemeteries with freshly dug graves) a man instrumental in the loss of our best piece of parkland, urges us to ‘see….what’s on offer’ – presumably the more keenly to feel its loss!
K Wass, Matchborough.
‘Rents have already increased by seven per cent this year’
THIS letter is regarding to the new Redditch Borough Council’s Tenancy Management Policy.
In this policy, it states ‘Behave in a tenant-like manner’. This feels like it degrades the tenants and what is a ‘tenant-like manner’?
What is more worrying, it states: “Entitled to up-lift the weekly rent to pay for the major improvements” like installation of kitchens or bathrooms. The rents have already increased by seven per cent this year, and will be going up by another seven per cent next year.
This angers me, because I have been a tenant of the council for the past 14 years, and in that time, we have been refused cavity wall insulation and replacements for our draughty windows.
If this policy goes through, I will have to pay for all the work which the council has failed to do, and I will go into debt.
I ask all tenants to have their say on this policy in the ongoing consultation, as this will affect all of us in the long run.
J Palmer, Lakeside
‘Closing ticket offices is discriminating against disabled staff’
AS someone who is disabled with a combination of hidden and visible impairments and as a non driver I could not travel by rail without the assistance of staff.
I need to be able to find them especially when there is a short notice change to my booking – I have cognitive disabilities caused by brain injury and my ability to cope with unexpected situations is severely impacted.
There have been six occasions in the last month alone (New St, Preston, Bournemouth, Reading and Euston) where I needed assistance quickly – not just in finding my train but getting authorisation to travel from a booking clerk.
This would not have been possible if I hadn’t known exactly where to go – the booking office.
The proposal to close ticket offices is discriminatory. It discriminates against all those people with disabilities who need to have contact with an actual person to complete their transaction. The blind. The d/Deaf. Those with dyslexia. Colour blindness. Musculoskeletal problems.
118 million rail journeys in the year 2021/22 were made through ticket offices. This is significant.
Furthermore closing ticket offices and the consequent redundancies is discriminating against disabled staff who cannot be redeployed to platform or roving duties.
These are all vital and valid issues that have not been addressed let alone adequately resolved.
N Braithwaite, Headless Cross
