Your Letters: Festive decorations, surveys, and the Garden Suite - The Redditch Standard

Your Letters: Festive decorations, surveys, and the Garden Suite

Redditch Editorial 9th Jan, 2022   0

THANKS to all at Christ Church who sacrificed their own festive tree for the benefit of the wider community to enjoy the tree in Matchborough Centre (Redditch Standard).

Whilst not a Christian myself, that is faith in the community in every sense of those words.

Possibly next year the pink lights, a tribute to the excellent Councillor Brunner, could be replaced by something more economical, especially considering the predicted increase in the cost of electricity.

Perhaps a tribute could be paid to the county councillor for the area, Matt Dormer, and the tree could be hung with a load of balls.




I feel retro festive decorations that won’t use up energy or be so costly to run, would be a fitting recognition of his commitment to environmental issues and value for money.

K Wass, Matchborough


S HARVEY from the local Labour Party doesn’t think the Conservative-run council is doing the kind of consultation that meets with her approval (Letters).

It’s hardly surprising that a Labour Party candidate doesn’t agree with how the Conservatives are doing things.

However, S Harvey does seem to demonstrate a very poor understanding of how a representative democracy works, which should be alarming to anyone thinking of voting for her in a future election.

Even more alarming is that she wants to waste expensive legal officer time (and therefore taxpayers money) dealing with her politically motivated complaints.

There are 29 councillors on Redditch Borough Council, each one of them also a citizen of the town.

A huge part of our job is to be in touch with the needs and aspirations of our residents and to guide policies and plans accordingly.

People will not be surprised to learn this can be done by picking the phone up to your local councillor, sending them an email, or joining them for a coffee and a chat at a local surgery.

All of this gets fed back into the day-to-day work at Town Hall, shaping the future of our town and the plans that get brought forward.

What S Harvey and her colleagues really want is to bypass all of this and have an expensive bureaucratic system that inherently supports socialist outcomes.

Why is that? Because only socialists have the time and inclination to sit down and complete long surveys about everything from what colour bricks they’d like to which books by Lenin and Marx they’d like to see stocked.

The rest of us have lives to be getting on with, and we expect councillors to do the job we pay them for – to be in touch, to find out what we want, then deliver it.

I think her colleagues who were successfully elected understand this – not least because they didn’t do the kind of consultation S Harvey is now demanding.

Councillor M Rouse, Redditch Conservatives

ON picking up my test kit from Tesco I was astounded to find the kit was manufactured in China

Not only has this country foisted Covid on the world but we are now lining their pockets by purchasing test kits from them.

You couldn’t make it up!

Jeff H, Crabbs Cross

I HAVE to agree with the correspondent who says it’s time for the debate on the site for the Garden Suite to end (Letters).

I also hope that her comments, and those of others like her, will be part of the debate.

It’s only when the people who have to live with these decisions are listened to that we can arrive at a fair solution.

My husband is undergoing monthly therapy at Kidderminster and, currently, has no problem driving himself.

There have been some occasions though when I and other family members have had to drop him there and, being unable to stay with him, had to return later in the day.

I’m in my late 70s and have my own medical issues, so a return of the Garden Suite to the Alexandra Hospital would make our lives a little less challenging.

S Burns, Webheath

I WAS interested to read the letter by G Thomas (Redditch Standard).

He/ she cites the example proffered by a friend from Chennai regarding burial practices in the UK and India with regard to hygiene.

Perhaps your correspondent is unfamiliar with a report found in The Economist some two years ago.

The researcher found that some 40 per cent of urban dwellers were still defecating in the streets (a search of its archives will turn the story up).

We might also consider that many castes require the dead are cremated.

The pyre is often launched onto the River Ganges.

The Ganges is one of the most polluted rivers known to man.

Yet many Indians come to bathe in it.

D Vincent, Winyates

I WENT to the main Redditch Tesco supermarket and was appalled, scared and angry at the large number of non-mask wearers – more than I’ve seen in any other shop or supermarket.

Okay, some of them might have been exempt, but clearly a lot weren’t.

I asked the security guard why non-mask wearers were being admitted and he shrugged his shoulders and said ‘I dunno mate, nothing to do with me’.

I’m vulnerable as I’ve had cancer and am asthmatic, I’ve been triple-jabbed and I wear a mask constantly, because I care about other people as well as myself – but it seems Tesco doesn’t care about me.

P Cooper, Bromsgrove

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