No uniformity in sentencing

Just a quick response to the remarks made by Roger Hayes and perhaps if he were a little more ‘in touch’ he would realise that the opinion offered by myself is also the opinion of many, many others.

Perhaps that is why we have to set up HomeWatch schemes to look out for one and other and keep a special eye on the elderly who worry a lot about crime. Also there has not been any fictional television police programmes for some years now and the coverage is factual policing throughout the United Kingdom on several channels.

Here too, if the police forces do not get enough evidence then of course the Crown Prosecution will not pursue the case. If magistrates and judges have to work to parameters then why is there no uniformity in sentencing, as there is little deterrent for re-offenders?

The victim gets little or no recompense when the offender is fined a menial sum.

ROY BATLEY

Colomb Road,

Gorleston

School bus pass fee nothing new

I note from last week’s Mercury that Flegg School and Belton schoolchildren are to be charged for transport.

Could I just say this is nothing new and all the protests and public meetings won’t make the slightest difference in my experience of these matters.

I am writing about my dealings with Cambridgeshire County Council and my two children who attended Soham Village College.

About 30 years ago, all the children were made to use a back entrance to school premises which was an extra half a mile or so rather than using the front entrance. We all thought it strange that contractors were employed to cut a new gateway and construct a path through to the school beside the out of bounds front entrance.

Soon we found out why, the village of Fordham where I lived was deemed to be within three mile limit of free transport. A resident brought a measuring wheel home and got a precise distance by walking it from the back entrance of the school to Fordham and likewise from the school’s front entrance.

It showed half the village of Fordham was within three miles measured from the new entrance but only about a fifth was in using the original back entrance.

The chairman of our protest group who was very eloquent and knew which buttons to press, was visited at home by county officials. The house was on a corner of two roads with the back door on one street and front door on another.

At this meeting it was decided that where part of a street was outside three miles the whole street got free transport, and believe it or not our chairman’s front door was on a free street, so his two children went free.

G A PITCHFORD

North Market Road,

Winterton on Sea

Cuts could force sites sell-off

Last week a UKIP councillor wrote encouraging a cash-strapped council to spend more on toilet attendants, who are now rare breed throughout the country. Is this a good idea? Likewise, spending more on tennis courts for a few weeks (or days) of the year, and the rare chance a British player may inspire more players, is hardly good budgeting. Is there anyone else for tennis?

Indeed, I wonder how much tax payers are paying to subsidise fun sports and cost benefit ratio.

A recent book lists our town as a “crap town” again and I am sure the lack of bins and litter bug activity help secure this label but can we afford more bins? Perhaps some litter fines may help?

UKIP should be worried that further Tory inspired cuts could force the council to sell off tennis courts and other prime sites along the proms. Ideal for Tory speculators to build luxury houses with sea views.

Gorleston seafront alone would raise millions for £1m houses and help lose the crap town image. The government changes to ease planning rules should help over rule objections.

CHRIS WRIGHT

Victoria Street,

Caister on Sea

Pontin’s site is a real disgrace

I am a local resident of Hemsby and I drive and walk past the old Pontin`s site on Beach Road every day. It has been vacant for a few years now with different rumours being spread around as to what is going to happen to the place .

My concern and that of other local residents, and of course holidaymakers, is the state of the place. It is the first thing you notice when you go up Beach Road and iI must say it now looks like a deserted prisoner of war camp; long grass, long weeds , overgrowing trees, but most of all the condition of the outbuildings and chalets, they look disgraceful.

Surely the company that still owns it should be made to keep it in some kind of respectable condition.

I have seen on the odd occasion rats and also foxes scurrying around when I have been going to my work early mornings. It is an eyesore.

DAVID SINGLETON

email

Stand up for the countryside

The countryside is increasingly at risk from inappropriate development caused by inadequate planning policies, a weakening of local democracy and a focus on short-term economic growth regardless of the environmental consequences.

The Government’s localism agenda has been seriously undermined and I am deeply concerned that local views are being ignored to the detriment of valued and irreplaceable countryside. While I recognise the need for economic prosperity, should this be pursued at any cost to the environment?

If we don’t stand up for the countryside we will lose it. I encourage your readers to sign the Campaign to Protect Rural England’s new charter which demands better protection for the countryside, a fair say for local communities in planning for the places where they live and work, and more housing – in the right places www.saveourcountryside.org.uk.

MARTIN DODD

High Road

Gorleston On Sea

Sale of homes = less available

It was good to read in the Mercury, July 19 that some council houses were to be built in Yarmouth after 20 years. The time taken is a disgrace in a town that badly need them.

Gratifying that council rents and money from Right to Buy was to be used as intended. If that money had been used all over the country when the scheme was introduced there would not be a shortfall in housing stock that there is now.

Surely it was obvious that selling homes would mean less available for other people or do those in government not realise the needs of those less fortunate than themselves.

OLIVE PRICE

Flowerday Close,

Hopton on Sea

A plague of maggots plea

Could Great Yarmouth Borough Council please give us advice on how to keep the maggots out of our bins?

My black waste bin has a week to go until it is emptied but due to the hot weather maggots are crawling out of the top and falling into the garden, something which is enjoyed by children daily and the dog. I am getting quite concerned that with another week’s worth of rubbish my garden will be crawling with them. Two years ago in the hot weather my husband and I were in the garden at 11pm hosing everything down trying to get rid of them.

Why can`t the council spend some of our council tax money having weekly black bin collections to try and stop these issues? Please do not advise us “Please do not fill your bins with rubbish as may cause infestations of maggots.” I can read it now!

TINA NUDD

email

A wonderful Wonderland

We had the pleasure to attend the production of Alice in Wonderland put on at Lynn Grove School by the pupils of Homefield VC Primary School, Bradwell, last Friday.

What a delight it was, the children all put their hearts and souls into the performance. The costumes, lighting and effects were excellent. It was such a polished performance.

A huge thank you to the staff and all who helped to put this production on, what a challenge you undertook and how well you succeeded.

How the young folk memorised all the words, we were amazed. Oh to be young again. Remembering our school plays, and what a contrast they were, and wishing we were young again was what came to mind.

KEN and MARION RIDGLEY

Gorleston.

We contributed to a hospice

Re Peter King’s letter, July 19. Sorry Mr King but you should know some facts about the charity.

From the beginning it was called palliative care and nothing was mentioned five or six years ago that it was going to be an information centre either.

Many people like myself and my late husband, who contributed incognito a very large sum of money thinking it was to be a much-needed hospice in an area where there is a large percentage of elderly people. Often they are alone after losing their partner with no-one to look after them if they were terminal to be able to die at home.

Palliative care according to the Encyclopedia Britannica is: Nursing or medical care to relieve the symptons of illness rather than treat the cause. Palliative care is given to people in the last stages of terminal illness, the aim to minimise unpleasant symptoms and provide a comfortable reassuring environment for the last days.

Palliative treatment such as the Louise Hamilton Centre gives is treatment to relieve the symptons of a disorder but not not cure it, such as pain relief, antiemetic drugs to relieve nausea and vomiting, sedative drugs and other therapies such as massage and counselling.

For Mr King to say nothing was mentioned about the Louise Hamilton Centre having beds is true. Until a few years ago many people were of the opinion that the charity palliative care was going to be a hospice which would provide beds and that’s where the criticism came in.

If you look back a few years ago to the Mercury letter pages many people wrote letters to say they felt deceived raising money for what they thought was going to be a hospice. We have since learned that in 2006 the James Paget Hospital’s intention was to accommodate palliative care service staff in a better environment at a cost of £25,000 per annum to run.

In March 2012, the governing body were told it was intended to be simply providing accommodation for existing James Paget palliative care service staff. They had now moved away from their objectives when they originally began fundraising.

Why weren’t people who were fundraising and contributing in 2006 told what their intentions were? Why in 2012 did they change their objectives. Was this perhaps East Coast Hospice had come on the scene?

Now we have the charity East Coast Hospice who have worked hard and have four shops in the area perhaps the Mercury who has given a colossal amount of publicity to the Louise Hamilton Centre and has on its website a tab dedicated to it, will do the same for East Coast Hospice?

How otherwise can the Mercury remain impartial on the matter, after all it is the local people who support the Mercury and all charities should be treated equally.,

I would like to say to the people who waste letters criticising and talking down the creation of a much needed hospice let’s all support this essential facility. We all have to die and it might be someone in your family will not be able to due at home and needs a hospice.

P ECCLESTONE,

Great Yarmouth

Dropped £20 was returned to me

I would like to say a big thank you to a gentleman who so kindly gave me a £20 note which I had dropped while at St Peter’s Road post office while collecting my pension on Monday, July 16. It was so honest of him.

Mrs M DADE

Caister on Sea

Fundraiser was a big success

I would like to say a big, big thank you to those that supported my most recent fundraiser which took place in May,

Just over £1,500 was raised and was split between my best friend who received a specially adapted laptop and various other goodies, CLIC Sargent, CHECT (Childhood Eye Cancer Trust) and Nelsons Journey. Thank you to those that supported us leading up to the fundraiser and on the day.

TIA HUTCHINSON

email

Put all the banks in old Co-op

You ask what can the old Co-op building be used for? My suggestion is it would be used for all the banks in the town to use as their bases. First they have the resources to make the building secure, there would be one entrance and the banks sub-divided up on the premises. Then there is the first floor and the lift and stairs, not forgetting the top floor.

Instead of having the banks dotted all over the place commonsense suggests the above.

D C INGRAM

Albany Road,

Great Yarmouth

Does seafront get priority clean

Through the Mercury, I would like to ask our council if we still have road sweepers other than on the seafront? I haven’t seen one in the Northgate area for some time, also the passageways at the back of Palgrave Road are again disgusting with rubbish and fast amounts of weeds and dog poo. And the drains stink.

I think the people in the area pay enough in council tax between them to at least get their streets clean as much as our beloved seafront. Perhaps as our mayor lives and works in the area we might get something done, who knows?

KEVIN HUBBARD

email

Let’s get full facts on PIPs

Following my public question, I was pleased on Tuesday night that the council leader, Trevor Wainwright agreed to investigate the fact there is a black hole in recording of decisions around the issue of the Public Information Pillars where, as reported in the Mercury, a huge debt was left uncollected by the previous Tory administration.

I welcome the fact this will be subject to scrutiny and hope the truth will be revealed as Cllr Wainwright said all decisions should be recorded.

RICHARD HUDSON

Clarendon Drive

Martham

£4k on fireworks is just a waste

Regarding Hemsby fireworks. Would the £4,000 plus be better spent on the beach instead of going up in smoke? Anyone who remembers Hemsby Beach Road of years ago knows how the night-time trade is dead.

People have not the money to spend in the evenings as well as the day. What is there to keep them amused all evening until 10pm? Children long in bed.

Nice idea but wrong priority with beach disappearing.

D HOCKNEY

North Road,

Hemsby

Now beach is a flytip hotspot

I along with other residents, members from the commercial sector, staff from Great Yarmouth Borough Services recycling team today (Wednesday) taken part in the monthly Beach Clean which takes place within the North Denes dunes, which I understand is not only a special scientific area for birds but also the varied plant life.

I have along with others in the past collected discarded rubbish such as beer cans, bottles, broken glass, household tools, plastic bottles, used nappies, paper lanterns and of course the discarded dog poo bags.

But now we are clearing up what I can only describe as flytipped household goods such as suitcases, garden cuttings, a child’s car seat and in particular someone had carefully placed a pile of wood including a cut-off from a black sparkly piece of kitchen work surface and wood on the foreshore.

I have to ask myself why? Why go to all that effort to cart this onto the beach?

As a child I was always told to take my rubbish home with me or place it in a bin or take a trip to the local recycling centre. Where is the pride in where we live?

This is our children’s legacy, we should cherish this wonderful open area.

PENNY CARPENTER

North Yarmouth