LETTERS - Remembrance service, council finances and cancer screening

‘Raise your voice for the National Anthem’

FROM a rather good vantage point near St Stephen’s Church, the Remembrance Sunday church service seemed to be generally very well organised, except for two things.

Firstly, the traffic passing by including during the two-minute silence.

Perhaps to stop this happening next year the police and/or the local highways team could simply stop the nearby movement of vehicles for a 15-minute period or just during the most important and essential two-minute silence.

Apparently the overstretched police force nowadays doesn’t have sufficient officers to cover the many locations.

The second matter which authorities have far less control over is the lack of voices actually singing!

The loud speakers were producing recorded music, which might have given the wrong impression the large crowd were joining in the hymns and the National Anthem.

In this day and age it might be expected that young Scouts don’t know the hymns. However, the Cadets and some members of the military had their mouths shut during the National Anthem.

From September onwards the youngsters could be taught to sing. And is it far too frivolous to suggest a karaoke version of the music is used next year?

We shall see.

Southcrest Resident

‘We’ve still got a lot to do to clear Tory mess’

SINCE taking over in May Redditch Labour has had the dubious pleasure of revisiting the Tories’ financial plans.

We inherited a tangled mess of confused priorities and even more confusing budgets.

Vanity project after vanity project had been commissioned with no real means to pay for rising costs and no contingency plans put in place. Costs for these vanity plans were running out of their control.

Worse still, under the Conservatives, the council had been unable even to publish its accounts for the last three years. Without these accounts, you can’t measure the health of council finances.

As for the proposed regeneration programmes, the political oversight had been so poor that by March 2025 we would have been facing two piles of rubble where the police station and library had once stood without the money to complete the projects commissioned to replace them.

We kept the library, saving 4.2million, and cut £2million from the cost of the town hall refit.

Working with finance officers, we have overseen the finalising and publishing of all three outstanding sets of council accounts.

We have also saved Ipsley Meadow from being destroyed, stopped the Tory privatisation of Shop Mobility and made Dial a Ride more affordable for elderly and disabled residents.

Unlike the previous administration, we have shown ourselves to be transparent, by posting regular leader updates online and in the Standard.

With honesty and transparency we have to announce that it gives us no pleasure to say budgets are going to be tight for at least the remainder of this financial year.

There are no hidden pots of gold, no fantasy grants, and no magic handouts. The reality is that we need to be prudent, spend within our means, and work with the money we have. A prudent approach is essential if we are to be able to plan for sensible growth for the borough in the medium term while still retaining our essential services.

There is a narrow path to financial stability, we can and will take measures to improve Redditch and make it a great place to live, work and do business.

We costed our manifesto before being elected so we are confident we will deliver on its promises.

But Rome wasn’t built in a day, it will take at least two financial years to fully clean up the mess we inherited. However, we have already done a lot in the first six months.

We will above all protect frontline services.

We will also continue to deliver on the real priorities of local people: housing, community safety, leisure and the environment.

We are extremely grateful and thankful to our MP Chris Bloore for working tirelessly to secure us the much-needed extension for the Towns Fund which has helped made this all possible.

There will be no unaffordable projects, just realistic, sensible, and meaningful delivery of the services we need.

And contrary to misleading information on social media by the Conservatives we will not be handing back any of the money this council has already received from the Levelling-up Fund.

Joe Baker, Leader of Redditch Borough Council

Ian Woodall, Finance Portfolio Holder

‘Vital cancer checker can be a real lifesaver’

OF THE 10,500 people diagnosed with pancreatic cancer each year, around one in 10 cases are inherited.

This can be worrying for family members as it is the deadliest common cancer.

More than half of people die within three months of diagnosis.

I am highlighting the Family History Checker, an online tool created by Pancreatic Cancer UK and supported by NHS England, to identify people with inherited risk of the disease and refer them for regular monitoring – giving them the best chance of being diagnosed early.

Crucially, the vast majority who are not at risk will be given reassurance for the first time.

Pancreatic cancer is difficult to detect at an early stage as there are no screening programmes and it has vague symptoms, like stomach and back pain, indigestion, and unexplained weight loss, which are common to less serious health conditions.

Tragically, 80 per cent of people are not diagnosed until after the disease has spread.

More than 40,000 people have already used the Family History Checker, but we must reach more if we are to identify everyone with inherited risk and improve survival rates.

Please share with your loved ones. The more people we reach, the more lives we could save.

Visit pancreaticcancer.org.uk/information/family-history-checker/ to check.

Anyone affected by pancreatic cancer can call our Specialist Nurses for support and information on our confidential, free Support Line on Freecall 0808 801 0707).

Nicci Murphy,

Pancreatic Cancer UK Specialist Nurse