I REALLY object to Rachel Maclean MP claiming ‘victory’ in getting the Garden Suite returned to the Alex.
The managers at the Trust made the perfectly logical reason to move it out of the Alex due to the number of patients with Covid-19 it was treating.
As we all know, Covid-19 is particularly dangerous for people with underlying health conditions.
By keeping Kidderminster Treatment Centre Covid free they were able to keep patients receiving chemotherapy safely.
Likewise, with the threat of the pandemic now receding – though by no means over – managers can start to think about returning the Garden Suite to the Alex.
Mrs Maclean should remember that it was thanks to the lax attitude towards lockdown of the Government she is a minister of that cost so many lives at the start of the pandemic.
She should be grateful that the people in charge of delivering health care to the people of Redditch were not so cavalier in their approach to dealing with the consequences of Covid-19 as her Prime Minister.
So she should stop her crowing and remember the Trust acted in the interests of all and not for scoring cheap political points and claiming credit where none is due.
A Cunningham, Church Hill
REGARDING the issues with Rubicon Leisure (Redditch Standard) I cannot see how Councillor Matt Dormer can insist that it now ‘starts making money to ease the burden on the council’ when it has been more or less forced to close for the last two years.
It is bound to take time for people to return to these facilities.
Covid may not be as deadly as it was this time last year, but infection rates are still sky high.
If Rubicon still needs support, it should be given it – what’s the alternative? Close the Palace Theatre and turn it into a bingo hall again?
Bulldoze the Abbey Stadium and put another housing estate there so the council can make more money?
G Cooke, Lakeside
I HAVE sent this letter to Rachel Maclean MP:
The Prime Minister leads a team. That team has performed badly either with or without his knowledge.
As leader I believe that he must resign or be removed because his team has let everyone in the country down.
That is what someone of honour and integrity would do – he is neither.
This has nothing to do with the ongoing Metropolitan Police investigation.
The fact that it’s happening at all would result in, at the very least, a suspension on full pay until the results were known, in any well run business. He must go.
You have actually reneged on a number of your manifesto promises:
You pledged not to raise taxes.
It won’t be hard to persuade people they are paying higher taxes.
‘Delivering 50,000 more nurses and 6,000 more doctors’ – the data show there were 313,836 full-time equivalent NHS nurses and health visitors in September 2021.
While that is up 17,743 since December 2019, it still leaves 32,257 full-time equivalent posts to fill over the next three-and-a-half years.
On GPs, there were 35,991 full-time equivalents in post in November 2021.That’s up by 1,283 since December 2019.
And if you exclude trainees and locums (doctors who temporarily fill a rota gap or who are not yet fully qualified), GP numbers have actually fallen by 72 since December 2019.
‘We will keep the triple lock’
This decides how much the State Pension increases each year, depending on which one of these is highest:
• CPI inflation (the rate at which prices are rising as measured by the Consumer Price Index)
• average wages
• or 2.5 per cent
It was introduced in 2010, and the 2019 Conservative manifesto said it would stay for the duration of this Parliament.
But this promise was broken on September 7, 2021 when the government announced it was suspending the triple lock for a year.
Instead of rising with average wages – the highest of the three measures – the government said pensions would rise by either inflation or 2.5 per cent instead.
And that’s just three.
N Braithwaite, Headless Cross
FOR the first time I can remember – and I have lived here for nearly 40 years, the berries on my holly tree have not all been eaten by the birds.
In any normal winter the tree would be stripped bare by mid December, not this time though.
I can only think it is due to climate change with warmer, wetter winters.
There’s also a wooded copse near where I live, and it always had a hollow which throughout the year would be filled with water.
But in the summer of 2021 it ran dry, and although it is full of water again now – goodness knows we’ve had enough rain – I fear it will be dry again this summer coming.
P Anderson, Studley
I MUST write to congratulate the firm that has built the new houses on the site of the old Liberal Club in Redditch at Mount Pleasant.
I walked passed it the other day and I must say they appear to have done a very good job.
A neat, contained and attractive group of properties. Well done Bromsford Housing Association.
P Riley, Lodge Park
