Your Letters - May 2

Town support

Re: article"Rules changed to allow pet food sales"

AFTER reading the article you published in this week's Observer I feel deeply concerned about the quoted opinions of councillors whom we trust to run our town. These councillors don't even seem to support the very town they govern over.

Cllr Joanne Gadd was quoted that she prefers to shop in out of town superstores in Eastbourne rather than supporting the small business that make up the town of Bexhill. There are several privately owned pet shops in Bexhill who supply the same items which can be purchased in these superstores. I am certain that in all of these local stores the customer service will be of better quality than that experienced in the super stores. After all these are not people turning up to a 9-5 job but in fact the owners of the shops in which form their livelihoods.

Cllr Wendy Miers then went on to say that without the addition of this pet superstore Bexhill will be over- looked by potential pet supply customers and that the addition of such a store will increase the number of visitors in Bexhill.

It may need to be mentioned to this councillor that Ravenside, lovely though it may be, is in fact an out of town retail park that is more likely to pull customers away from Bexhill's town centre than it is to increase the amount of potential visitors.

I feel let down after hearing the opinions of these people who should be aiming to achieve what is in our town's best interests but instead seem to be making decisions in order to make things more convenient for themselves.

NICHOLAS INGAMELLS

Jasmine Way

Town support 2

Re: Rules changed to allow pet food sales

WHAT a disgrace! Cllr Joanne Gadd has admitted that she already travels to Eastbourne to do her pet food shopping thus harming the environment whilst going there and with petrol prices the way they are she is paying more for her goods at the same time.

Does she not know that there are already five pet stores in Bexhill not including Tesco's and Sainsbury's or where they are for that matter?

What's happened to the saying shop local and support your local stores. For example take a look at pages 21-27 of the Bexhill Observer dated April 25, Celebrate Independents Day support local independent business does the councillor understand local or not?

Cllr Wendy Miers reckons that if we do not have these big stores in our town Bexhill will be passed by. Bexhill is already passed by thanks to having a Tesco and major chain stores at Ravenside, so what will happen if more stores go out of town or another big one moves into Ravenside like Pets at Home? I will tell you: you will see another couple of empty shops in the town.

I am puzzled why this is happening to the site; 7B currently known as Roseby's is still open for business as usual and has no intention of closing so what is going on? What is the point in having rules in place if the big wigs can come along and change them to suit one big company?

How many small businesses are going to close before this council does anything to stop it happening? When are they going to do anything to support the small family run businesses in this town of our's.

MRS. P. A. TIDD AND FAMILY

Orchard Road

Town support 3

AFTER reading the article (April 25) on Ravenside pet food store being supported so strongly by Cllr Paul Lendon who shows no concern for small businesses in this area, how do they compete with multiples?

Cllr Joanne Gadd who travels all the way to Eastbourne to shop for her pets really making small business in Bexhill feel supported by local council, obviously the three pet shops in Bexhill are below her. Surely without these small businesses Bexhill will just end up a ghost town.

However I take my hat off to Cllr Deirdre Williams, a lady concerned about the town and its traders. Keep up the good work!

Bexhill has some fantastic independents and surely deserves all your support.

FRANK EDGAR

Sackville Road

Teacher talents

TEACHERS in East Sussex have taken part this week in the first national day of action over pay for over 20 years. They need our support in what is becoming an increasingly complex and challenging task.

Parents and children are best served by a well motivated and rewarded staff team and the government is currently selling them short. A three-year pay offer which will not keep up with the cost of living is no way to reward teachers properly.

Numbers of young teachers today struggle to maintain a decent standard of living for them and their families. The action taken last week is one way of showing how concerning the situation is becoming. No teacher takes this sort of action lightly.

Most will have entered the profession, not for the financial gain but as a vocation.

As a retired teacher who taught for nearly 30 years in local schools, I know only too well the joys and challenges which teaching brings. Job satisfaction, and the knowledge that we can really make a difference to the lives of young people, are two aspects of the job which keep staff motivated.

However, to attract and keep the best teachers in the profession requires a pay award commensurate with their hard work and talents.

The 'Fair Pay for Teachers' campaign can only be regarded as in the best interests of children as well as teachers.

NEIL BATES

Millfield Rise.

Knife fight

REFERRING to your report (Observer, April 25) concerning a 'gang talking about knives'. I would like to correct an important point that seems to have been omitted by both the reporter and the emergency centre to whom I reported the crime.

That is that I didn't only hear them talking about knives, I actually saw them fighting with them and said so to the operator.

I told the emergency operator that I had heard one saying "Get your weapons out" and then a girl's voice saying "No don't use your knives" and then I said to the lady that what they were saying was fairly irrelevant, as I could now see them fighting with said knives.

It was the fact that I had informed the police that I had seen them fighting with knives and that they still hadn't taken any action when they attended, that I found so amazing.

NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED

Speed control

IT is time something was done about the speed controls on De La Warr Road. There should be flashing 30 mph speed warnings installed. The cars coming up King Offa Way are going too fast as they approach the Dorset Road traffic lights.

There is only one 30 mph sign which drivers do not see or deliberately ignore.

The traffic lights at Brett Drive should be altered. Twice in the last week I have waited behind a vehicle waiting to turn into Brett Drive for at least 10 minutes because the driver cannot understand the lighting sequence. Would it not be easier to have a green arrowed light on the right and a filtered traffic light on the left for traffic going straight on to Hastings?

Who had the bright idea to do away with the filter for turning left into Hastings Road? Did we really need a wider pavement? This filter did help the traffic flow.

R. SANDERSON

Top Cross Road.

Village choice

I'M writing in response to Helena Coleman's letter titled Village Treat this week. I totally agree with Helena and the fabulous shops available to us in Little Common.

Although I live in Hastings on a visit to Little Common earlier this year I popped into Select Interiors and I was truly amazed at the superb range of soft furnishings and the full range of services available.

I'm delighted that I did go into the shop as I then had Linda, the shop owner, visit me in my home to help with the design and fabrics for my window dressings.

I also had two other quotes (I won't mention the company names!) and Select Interiors came up with the best price, teamed with a 1st class service and I was totally amazed with the end results.

I recommend Linda at Select Interiors to everyone I know and I'll be going back to her for the rest of my soft furnishing needs. Surprisingly a lot of people I've spoken to don't realise she's there along with the other great shops available in the village. As Helena said, use them or lose them.

L. RICHARDS (Mrs)

Redmayne Drive

Hastings

Lamp laughs

HAS anyone noticed the explosion in population of street lights in Bexhill Old Town?

I have just counted those in the area and got to about 44! in comparison to just 19 of the previous type. What an advert for global warming! and to cap it all where have they been put?

With little or no thought to the disabled or to pushchairs, some have been planted smack in the middle of the pavement, the ones outside the doctors' surgery and outside Quakersmill are impassable. What an outrageous misuse of time and money, are they supposed to look like old world lamps? Laughable! Was there any need? Really?

RIK COWLARD

Church Street

Special care

I WISH to let everyone know of the special care and attention I received while spending five months in the Irvine Unit.

I arrived there on November 5 with little or no movement from the waist down after an accident which damaged my spine in August.

The attention I received from the nurses, physios OTs was second to none, even the housekeepers and other staff were always cheerful and happy and ready to help.

I eventually got to a situation where I was able to be allowed home, now home I am still getting follow up care from all the various outreach teams who are there to help.

C. FRENCH (Mrs)

Hastings Road.

Vigorous objection

LAST year, Rother District Council objected to the proposal to build a sports centre at Gunters Lane on the grounds that it represented a loss of playing fields and would cause traffic problems.

Presumably, the council will object even more vigorously to the proposal to transfer the High School to the site.

R. A. Saunders

Ellerslie Lane

Still here

AS many people have asked where my letters are, I thought I would write one to thank all those who have been kind to me just lately while I have not been too well over the last few years.

JACKIE LUCK

Eversley Road

Gunters Lane

Re: Gunters Lane - Road calming scheme

HAVING seen the presentation at the High School about this scheme, I would like to make the following observations.

1. Little consideration seems to have been given to the needs of the local inhabitants of the local roads who have to access Gunters Lane. Traffic waiting to emerge into the road will be confronted by vehicles halted at the lights, or by a stream of traffic unwilling, because of their delay, to give way.

2. Proposed priority to northbound vehicles will cause tailbacks of southbound traffic.

3. Allowing vehicles to turn right into the entrance to Charters/Ancaster School will obstruct traffic in the narrow section of the lane and emerging traffic will not know when it will be safe to do so. When the original approval for this school was granted it was stated that right hand turns into and out of this entrance were to be prohibited. How was this not implemented? It should now be!

4. I am led to believe that the Head of the school expects that a large proportion of the pupils will arrive by cycle, to which end it is proposed to provide a large number of cycle racks. As a great many of them will live in the town area and so would approach via the narrow part of Gunters Lane, has the likelihood of them cycling up this route been considered? To my mind unlikely. It is more likely that they will arrive by car (has Mr Conn ever tried to cycle up the lane? Most people end up walking).

5. Has an Environmental Impact Statement been prepared for the proposal to site a 1600 pupil school on this site (it should be remembered that the present school premises will remain as a junior school) if so were any of the local inhabitants consulted? If they were, I am sure they could have pointed out the folly of the scheme. The proper place for this school would be with the good access projected to be via the new link road.

I know that many other residents will find other flaws in the proposal that seems to me to be the typical result of a committee sitting far away in Lewes.

P. E. WHITE

Glenleigh Avenue

Planning disaster

Re: De La Warr Heights

D. ATKINSON (Letter, Observer, April 25) is right to be so shocked by the reality of this 'monstrous carbuncle' in the middle of the Central Bexhill Conservation Area.

It is now clear beyond any dispute that the block is completely out of character with the restrained Edwardian tone and scale of the surrounding area and we can sadly expect worse from the twin horror under construction across Sackville Road - which per the plans is even bigger and uglier as well as housing the still contentious 'social' element.

So why was this planning disaster waved through against total and vociferous local opposition by the same planners who, as Mr Atkinson also points out, go to such neurotic detail concerning minor details of finish a few yards away? The answer, I'm afraid, lies once again with the famed sacred White Elephant of Bexhill town - the De La Warr Pavilion.

The developer's masterly strategy was to design and present De La Warr Heights (and its even uglier sister) entirely as an act of architectural homage to the De La Warr Pavilion (and how they must have chortled over that choice of name!). Now we know that all right thinking metropolitan aesthetes, dilettantes etc. regard the Pavilion as a divine design sacrament gifted on the ungrateful and unworthy Philistines of Bexhill, so how could any humble local planner or councillor resist this approach?

The net result is that we now have a compelling planning precedent for the crude DLWP tail to wag the tired old town centre dog. If we are not very careful, the restrained Edwardian heart of Bexhill will be ripped out and replaced by further even more vulgar approximations of the Pavilion style. And within ten years Bexhill could look like one of the uglier suburbs of Birmingham.

J. BARTLETT

Kewhurst Avenue

Grim building

I COULDN'T agree more with D. Atkinson (Letters, April 25) about the abomination that passes for a block of flats at the seaward end of Sackville Road.

This has to be the worst piece of design I have seen in many years. It is grim enough to pass for a top-security prison. The only thing missing is the bars.

I thought this area of Bexhill was supposed to be a conservation area.

Why, then, was planning permission ever given for this ghastly place?

Indeed, who was responsible for giving that permission? Presumably, it was a Rother Council committee. Could we have the names of those who voted in favour? They have a lot for which to answer.

Did they ever see plans before they let it go ahead? Were there architects' sketches of how it would look? Or did they simply nod it through without proper consideration?

D. Atkinson asks: "Are we to expect a similar monstrosity on the other side of the road?" A very good question. What will the second building look like?

I have seen no sketches. Perhaps the Observer might enlighten us.

Another thing. With the credit crunch and the increasing difficulties in getting mortgages, affordable and otherwise, it could be a very long time, if ever, before the existing building is occupied.

In any case, would anyone with a soupcon of taste want to live there?

NORMAN CHURCHER

Marina

Blame EU

Re: Collington post office shuts, Bexhill Observer, April 11

I AM a frequent visitor to Bexhill and always obtain copies of the Bexhill Observer. (Thanks Mum!) I was saddened to learn of the closure of Collington Mansions post office. However I felt your readers might be interested to know the real reason for this.

EU Directive 1997 67 compels us to open up our postal service to EU wide competition. As a result the lucrative parts of our postal service, ie. business mail and parcel deliveries have been effectively cherry picked by the likes of Deutche Post and TNT. This leaves our poor old Post Office with the "Loss Leader" aspect of the business, the domestic mail.

Our Government, recognising the problem, has calculated that the once financially viable Post Office now has a trading shortfall of 208 million per year.

EU Directive 2002 39 limits the amount of subsidy our Government is permitted to give, to 150million (and this only for three years).

Needless to say, many more post offices will be forced to close as a result of this situation. Incidentally the EU now controls our refuse collection, which has also been the subject of much correspondence.

JAMES MCNEICE

Kenley

Surrey

Postal politics

NEW Labour must really hate pensioners, after ruining the best pension scheme in Europe they now exacerbate the misery by shutting down sub post offices. The excuse that the POs are loss-making is nonsense.

My PO in Terminus Road has constant queues and appears to be permanently busy with the competent cheerful staff a credit to the system. I refuse to believe that this branch is not profitable.

However quite regardless of profitability the PO is a service, no lesser important than the emergency services to the community. It allows the old, inform, handicapped and low paid to have local access to many important services, not everyone is able to reach the main branches.

This appears to be a political decision as with so many others that have been adding to the breakdown of the British way of life.

The people who make these decisions are immune to the consequences of their actions because politicians have become the "nouveau riche", funded by an ever-increasing tax burden paid by the long suffering population. How dare they shut these places down?

A. J. CLARKSON

Manor Road

PO parking

Copy of a letter sent to Cllr Mrs J Hughes

NOW that the post office in London Road is closed and the one at Collington due to close shortly, is it not time to re-open the space in front of the main post office for short term (not too short!) car parking?

It is going to be difficult for many elderly residents to get to that post office but without any parking it is almost impossible for many. If necessary there could be a temporary closure if the area was needed for a special event. Though how many has it been used for in the past year?!

It is just a waste of valuable space. Please do consider this option.

D. MASHITER (Mrs)

Sutherland Avenue.

Absurd idea

THE closure of the Collington post office is preposterous, illogical, unreasonable and totally senseless - in short absurd.

Another word that comes to mind is inconvenience to countless customers who have been served by Jill and Derek efficiently and happily for many years. Always ready to help if there's a problem. The anger it has created is overwhelming. It is inconceivable that the "powers that be" cannot envisage the problems this closure will cause and the ensuing chaos which is inevitable - but then who, in the higher echelons cares about the "peasants"!

A very grateful customer - ex, unfortunately.

BARBARA TROWER

Cooden Drive

Traffic congestion

OPINIONS may vary as to whether the block of flats near the roundabout at the end of Sackville Road helps maintain the town's Edwardian heritage (last week's letter 'Flats shock'). I am inclined to agree that it does not.

A noticeboard on the other side of the road states that a further 66 flats are to be built there.

Hopefully, both blocks of flats will have adequate resident, visitor and tradesman parking facilities to obviate the risk of traffic congestion at the roundabout; also space for scaffolding, which will be needed in future for maintenance and redecoration.

Otherwise pedestrians will be inconvenienced for long periods.

Presumably, on such a site, special attention has been paid to building standards such as noise insulation and safe balconies.

It seems that many of the flats on the front are owned as second or third homes, and only used for a week or so each year. If this is the case in Sackville Road, it may help ease some of the problems, and maybe the town planners are relying on this.

One can see blocks of flats being built in other areas of the town. These may be suitable for the more elderly, but not for younger folk with growing families. Are there sufficient houses in Bexhill for them?

JOHN LEWIS

Lionel Road

Who's listening?

I READ your article on the proposed but as yet unpaved McCarthy and Stone block of 60 flats in Little Common. They don't listen - 22 parking places? I live in a development, we have 18 places for 47 flats, total nightmare but they won't do anything about it. We have requested that only residents use the car park but visitors seem hell bent on taking up our places. We pay massive ground rent to McCarthy and Stone and we are in a ridiculously high council band.

One visitor who wouldn't give either their name or whom they were visiting basically said they didn't care - the person they were visiting didn't have a car so he was using her space, with this kind of attitude, disabled residents who need easy access to their cars can't park.

Also if we are forced out into the road our insurance for the car park is made null and void.

We have an army of "helpers" coming and going all day so it's a total nightmare.

With 53billion profit last year I feel perhaps McCarthy and Stone could afford to build slightly smaller blocks with adequate car parking.

J. CAMDEN-FIELD (Mrs)

Cranfield Road

Such kindness

MAY I please use your column to sincerely thank the lady who found and handed back the 135.00 worth of stamps which I purchased for office use from the Collington Avenue sub-post office on Tuesday morning and then subsequently unknowingly dropped outside in the street. When I realised what I had done my blood ran cold! Her kindness and honesty is very very much appreciated.

What would the chances have been of my getting them back had I dropped them outside the main Post Office, which is where I will have to walk to after May 4?

SHIRLEY WITHAM

Terminus Road