Letters to the Editor: Including '˜Residents' uproar over Willen waste'

It has, as I expected, struck a sensitive nerve and I am getting a lot of feedback and support from Woolstone and Willen residents regarding further opposition activity.

I think the information requested in last week’s letter, the names of the MK councillors who voted in favour, is of course public domain information.

As I was present at that DCC meeting I almost listed this information for you to publish, then I caught myself as I am standing as a parish councillor in the May 5 local election. As a result of that, there is a convention for parish councils to avoid controversial topics in the weeks leading up to the election day, then the gloves come off again the day after.

I am perhaps erring on the side of caution, however it is completely the case that any MK resident with access to the MK Council meeting records will be able to find out for themselves when the minutes of the DCC meeting on March 22 are published, which should be in the next few weeks, as I understand the usual process (i.e. incompletely!).

In the meantime, anyone who was at that meeting can easily write in to the Citizen to tell us all via this valuable and public serving letters page.

Incidentally, I serve in Campbell Park parish up the election, and who knows, perhaps for another four years after that if the good citizens of the Woolstones are so minded.

There was a vote in favour of continued opposition to the Pineham/Willen Lake by CPPC earlier this week. It was a large majority in favour (minutes will be available shortly) with only one parish councillor voting against. I shall not name him for the same reasons as above, and I expect he had good reason for doing so, even if I did not understand it on the night – my fault I expect.

Councillor Chris Brown

Campbell Park Parish – Representing Woolstone Ward

EU referendum

Leaving isn’t leap in dark

We have indeed had unregulated fishing since the 50s, Dr Mason – the 1050s (Letters – April 7). We have fished the seas since the 11th century. Then we joined the ‘Common Market’, a catastrophe for fish and fishermen.
Europe introduced fishing quotas; fish caught over the quota were dumped back into the sea. The North Sea soon became a stinking soup of rotting fish. But Norway, Iceland and Greenland, not being members of the EU, managed their fishing grounds themselves and have a very successful fishing industry.
Derek Beaumont (Letters ibid) omitted to say that the EU stopped us from wrapping fish and chips in newspaper in the 1980s. And whatever you think about coal, shouldn’t it be our decision to stop using it, rather than unelected bureaucrats in Brussels?
Incidentally, leaving the EU is not leaping into the unknown. Greenland left the EU, so should we.

Don Hoyle

Great Holm

Milton Keynes

Housing

Against the workers

I would like to thank you for printing the article “Housing issues have dropped off radar”. Affordable housing has been a problem for many years and made worse by the sale of council houses during the Thatcher years. In the article l asked the council to respond to a question regarding housing associations, which they may or may not do. I personally would like to hear their reasons as l believe that they are discriminating against a sector of the working class that they will be relying on in the forth coming local elections.

Mr Graham Dean

Walnut Tree

Waste disposal

Jobs for the locals?

I work near by the new waste disposal plant in Old Wolverton, Dickens Road. We have been having problems with parking in our car park and I have been having to approach these guys and have found out that most of the men being dropped off are from Eastern Block nationalities. I thought this was odd so asked an employee that works there and he told me they have employed 250 men. 99 per cent are from Eastern Block countries, most are dropped off in large vansits like they’re being shipped from outside the area. Just thought with them building and promoting this new largest waste disposal site in the country and also the said would generate job for Milton Keynes people? Just thought this was news and you might like to know,not sure if there’s a story there. It’s run by joint partnership Amey and MK Borough Council.

Name and address supplied

Hospital

Injection cost me £8

Re: Your article on Milton Keynes and Bedford Hospitals (Citizen, April 7). I was sent to Bedford Hospital for an injection (a 15-minute appointment). It cost me £8 in petrol and parking, and my daughter had to take time off work to go with me. No-one mentions the time it cost to the patient when the facilities are not in the local hospital.How many other people are having the run-around at their own cost?

Mrs Smith

Bow Brickhill

Petal power

Flowers are fabulous

Driving to work in Milton Keynes is all the more pleasurable now that spring has sprung. The carpets of flowers that line our road sides really are most pleasing to the eye, Thank you very much to the person responsible for the idea to plant MK so well - it was not in vain

Joseph Jones

Central Milton Keynes

Steel crisis

Where were all the MPs?

Was anyone else appalled by the empty seats in the House of Commons yesterday during the discussion about the steel industry? This is important for the future of Great Britain as well as those communities directly impacted.

Joyce Stark

by email

Flower Kube

MK is duller without stall

I am saddened to learn that the Flower Kube is closing down, due to high rent increases.
I wonder whether any of the nearby shops could sponsor it?
It is such a shame as it was a beautiful place right in the centre. Milton Keynes will be a duller and more drab place without it.
Thank you to all who worked there and all the best for the future.

Mrs Angela Edwards

by email

Flower Kube

How many more to go?

Why are the council getting rid of popular stalls at Milton Keynes? They got rid of a popular charity stall, run by a mother and daughter with the proceeds going to the Windsor hospital in Whalley Drive. Now we see they have got rid of the flower stall near McDonald’s. This stall had such a good selection, very reasonable and stocked things you could not get elsewhere up there - that only leaves Marks and Spencer selling flowers inside. How many more popular stalls will disappear? Why we need the posh settees and such up there I do not know, at least the homeless could find a use for them.

Ann Coleman

by email

Climate change

Renewables are a waste

No convincing link has been made between man-made CO2 and the change. But something that is known is the UK’s share of the man-made CO2 entering the atmosphere. It is currently around 3 per cent. 
This means that even if the UK ceased producing CO2 altogether the effect on global production of the stuff would be tiny. 
Yet such is the blinkered and mathematically challenged view of our easily panicked politicians that we got ourselves committed to spending £billions on very expensive and unreliable ‘renewables’. A move that would, at best, have a negligible impact on global CO2.

Ron Turvey

Address supplied