Sorry but too little too late!

I WELCOMED Cllr Reynolds positive road of action in trying to resolve the decline of our town centre retail industry, but and it’s a big but! It seems sad to say a very small gesture only, almost like dangling a carrot in front of a donkey, not quite getting there and not even a full carrot!

Two hours on two days on two very small car park areas, and not being implemented until October, is I feel and I’m sure I am not alone with my thoughts. Nice try Mr Reynolds, but just too little, too late.

We need a massive injection to help stop this decline not a pin prick type action. Also we need action immediately, if it was to make a difference. One full day and in one good sized car park would have been a more realistic plan. Shame, for want of repeating myself. Too little and too late.

Cllr MARIE FIELD

Audley Street

Great Yarmouth

Let’s keep it as a good hospital

WHAT a great headline, 64 jobs to be axed to save money, but they can still afford to pay �45,000 for a chairman of the board to work a minimum of three days a week.

In my opinion, they should not need a board of some outsiders as I think that those in charge of running the hospital should be working at the hospital and be fully conversant with hospital procedures and not some outside board. Hinchingbrooke was a damning indictment on the NHS, so it is time they got rid of the top heavy management and put it into the hands of those understand the running of a hospital. The hospital is service for us all not a business for some executive to get a fat salary. We have a good hospital, let’s keep it that way.

J T TAYLOR

Caister Road

Great Yarmouth

Great to hear from Siobhan

I WOULD like to say how much I enjoyed reading the article from Siobhan Meade. Far too often we read and encounter problems with our own localised issues.

To get Siobhan’s view and her problems that she faces on things we (more often than not) take for granted, really puts things into perspective.

I know Siobhan and Max (previously Liza) are well known around the town especially the regular shops they frequented. My wife and the staff often looked forward to her and Max/Liza’s visits to Peacocks (although successful alas now no longer trading, for whatever profit-based reason).

I hope that we, the readers receive updates on her and Max’s progress in the future?

It was good to hear that two-hour free parking limit for the Market Place - stable door springs to mind - will now occur but with shops and stores closing at an alarming rate, perhaps the only people benefiting, may well be those unfortunates signing on at Jobcentre Plus?

KEN EKE

Email

Can we cope with a drought?

AS we race toward the middle of the year and the forthcoming Olympics, are we as a United Kingdom, united enough to cope with a serious situation which is now coming onto our horizon. The situation being drought!

As an en-bloc island, we have an abundance of water at its northern end, repleting as we move south. If we are united as we profess to be, why is it we cannot distribute it throughout the island, by connecting the Scottish lochs, to the lakes, to canals, to waterways of all kinds so that the water will flow naturally to the reservoirs in the south of the island? Why not? It is because the water companies which are being fragmented will not pull together.

If nothing is done to get a grip on this situation I feel, the Olympics for us, is going to be a very worrying time!

JACK DYE

Gonville Road

Gorleston

Amazing what a royal visit can do

AMAZING, isn’t it? A flying visit from the monarch-in-waiting and people appear as if from nowhere, adding a lick of paint – all things which should be done anyway for the badly put-upon travelling public.

And who pays for it all? Come to think of it, perhaps there would be fewer redundancies in hospitals, schools and other vital sectors if we removed the somewhat redundant Prince from the taxpayer-funded payroll/gravy train altogether.

MICHAEL SPRAGG

Collingwood Road,

Great Yarmouth

Women needed -

but not this way

I TRAVELLED back into a time capsule on Friday night and attended my first Labour meeting for 15 years. Early on in the meeting a debate took place on the imposition of a woman-only shortlist in Great Yarmouth. The debate was started by Tony Wright, former Member of Parliament for Great Yarmouth.

I believe politics needs more women involved but not via discrimination. The Labour Party was founded on the principle of equality of opportunity for all and the imposition of a woman-only shortlist just goes totally against this concept.

RICHARD HUDSON

Clarendon Drive

Martham

We don’t want

‘tawdry dazzle’

OH no! Now the business which has been allowed to despoil our lovely golden beach with monstrous inflatables and trampolines is planning to take advantage of the news-cleared area of the parade to erect up to 21 pitch-roof beach huts, each 10m by 3m – much bigger than the previous ones, in face the size of a residential caravan! And standing back 2-3m from the seawall presumably to make room for deckchairs.

Surely that will take up much more of the promenade, that precious space that so many of us rallied round to save from Cllr Reynolds’ parking plans. And where will the people using these huts park their vehicles?

Why does every open space have to be covered by something that makes money – Gorleston’s unique selling point is as as old-fashioned, plain and simply, quiet seafront, safe for us all to enjoy. We don’t want to be another Great Yarmouth with all its tawdry dazzle.

If these plans go ahead, especially if they have mains electricity (or individual generators, with all that noise), then it isn’t many steps to envisage huts, and car parking, all the way along, is it?

CAROL DOE

Avondale Road

Gorleston

Prince Charles listened well

I WENT on Monday morning to Great Yarmouth train station with a package of information about Vauxhall Bridge and a petition, to ask Prince Charles to support our efforts to restore the bridge.

We had written to him in the past, asking him to be our patron, but he replied he was very busy, and he could not afford to spend the time as he would like to.

I spoke to the police at the station on Monday and they told me they would help me by pointing out his people to receive the information. Then a railway policeman told me I would not be able to get close to him, so I walked to his bodyguards myself and handed them the information about the bridge. They were very polite and asked my name and took it.

When Prince Charles arrived, I welcomed him in Greek and he stopped and I spoke to him about the bridge, which I showed him. He was very interested, and he asked if I had left some information for him – which I had. So let’s see what happens.

I found him very nice and very approachable, despite what the police told me. I suppose they have to do their job. Prince Charles listened carefully.

He is a very gracious man and we need all the support we can get.

MIRIAM KIKIS,

Seafood Restaurant,

North Quay

Great Yarmouth

The Prom needs to move forward

SOME good news last week that the Pier Hotel owners have almost sorted out the car parking, which should be an improvement to the area. Hopefully, the pier itself may be enhanced in due course.

I note the council side of it to consider a pedestrianised piazza area seems to have gone quiet. Has the council fixed the derelict shelters yet? Perhaps the private sector could convert them to beach huts?

I am very uncertain about cluttering up the Prom with some huts for the exclusive few who could afford them - another money-making scheme which will do little for the town. The photo view from the past shows they would hardly enhance the place. It is bad enough cluttering up the beach with a bouncy castle which would be more at home at rundown Yarmouth.

Good too, to consider enhancing the area near the quay with housing - flood protected presumably? The developers should help relocate businesses affected as there are plenty of other sites.

Gorleston should be distinctive and have quality not tat. The Prom is a major asset which needs to move forward not back to the past with huts!

CHRIS WRIGHT

Victoria Street,

Caister on Sea

Correct! These cats are a pain

MRS Theresa Whitmore states she knows cats are a pain and I agree with her. I have one that keeps coming over into my garden late at night and messing and the mess is not covered over, then I have to keep clearing it up.

They scrabble up seedlings and plants in the garden, and it is not nice if you are gardening and you put your hands in the nasty smelling mess even if you are wearing gloves.

Why should we have to put up with this? How would some of the cat owners feel if I had a dog and let it mess in their garden? They would report me to the council. I do not understand why so-called cat lovers let their cats out to roam all night long that’s when most of them go into people’s gardens and mess.

They even climb over our cars leaving muddy paw marks and can scratch the paint work as they slide down bonnets and boots.

Mrs S E ALDRED

Groomes Close

Hopton on sea

In favour of keeping scheme

NOW that we have received the consultation results on the Great Yarmouth residents’ parking scheme, which have been prised by way of a freedom of information request by one of our local councillors, I would like to summarise the findings for your readers as follows:

Despite the attempts to bolster their support for the removal of the scheme by expanding the consultation to the areas adjacent to the scheme area which were more likely to support their view, the borough councillors are going to have to recognise the fact that of the total number of respondents 441, those in favour of supporting the council’s position for removal of the scheme amounted to 172, those who were in favour of retention of the scheme amounted to 254 and those that had no preference amounted to 15.

The result being a balance of 82 respondents in favour of retaining the scheme.

No doubt the politicians will now be busy preparing their response in line with the usual percentages and statistical argument and so on, but the simple truth is that more respondents (82) were in favour of the schemes continuance.

This is in the non-political world what we call democracy and it is the way sadly that some of you councillors were elected ... until further notice it is the way we do things in this country ... so get used to it !

P FITZGERALD

Great Yarmouth Residents’ Association

Defend marvellous

local asset

THE cheque is in the post! Of course I’ll respect you in the morning! Two of the three greatest lies of the 20th century. I’ve left out the third in the name of decency.

But now our beloved government have eclipsed all these with their heartfelt: “The National Health Service is safe with us.” This can never happen when the first consideration is the bottom line of the balance sheet.

Now we learn there are to be major redundancies at the James Paget Hospital in the name of balancing the books.

Small wonder this sort of situation can arise given the unstinting support of our local MP. Readers will recall that when he and two of his colleagues received complaints about the hospital his first reaction was to go along with this condemnation, without substantiation.

Perhaps he should be told that he should be defending this marvellous local asset rather than appearing on television to damn it with faint praise. Brandon Lewis should make a lot more effort to represent his constituency.

JIM MALLARD

Beach Road

Winterton on Sea

Please put your

dogs on a lead

IT was a beautiful day on Sunday and where is the nicest place I could take my 23-mont- old grand-daughter, where she could run and run, fall over and not get hurt?

Of course, our lovely Gorleston beach. But to my disappointment I must have counted at least 13 dogs on the beach, some on leads, some not. Every time my grand-daughter was enjoying playing on the beach a dog came running by and not on a lead. She was terrified.

“Up Nanny. Don’t like it,” was all she kept saying. It’s not fair, you dog owners, please put your dog on a lead and let my grand-daughter enjoy her time on our lovely beach without worrying if they are going to bite or knock her over. Have some respect please.

SUSAN WHITTAKER

Email

What next? Our

Royal borough

OUR royal borough? It was good to see HRH Prince Charles walking among us on Monday. Shades of the Duke of Windsor also doing so on October 21, 1930. King George V also came on December 4, 1916 when we were in the frontline of Zeppelin air raids. And 175 years ago, when Palmers department store opened, did perhaps the 18-year-old Princess Victoria put in an appearance? Shopping from Sandringham by horsedrawn, royal carriage.

At least we have the fine Victoria shopping arcade as a reminder of her reign.

There is another good photo of the late King George VI who visited us with his Queen and the princesses Elizabeth and Margaret in the 1940s. In this year of our dear Majesty’s Dimaond Jubilee as the status of St Nicholas’Church has been raised to that of a Minster, could we perhaps be also designated a Royal borough? God save our Royal Family.

ROY WALDING

Mill Lane,

Bradwell

Highest praise

for the Paget

I FEEL I must write on the subject of the James Paget Hospital, which has had a lot of bad reports of late, and I feel these reports are unjustified. My daughter gave birth to a baby girl on February 2 after a very problematic pregnancy, in and out of the Paget the whole time. Then she found her baby had a heart problem.

The nurses and doctors, cleaners and tea ladies were fantastic. They were there for my daughter and her baby every step of the way.

They have set up visits to Great Ormond Street and made sure she is well taken care of, even now that both mother and baby are at home. The James Paget continues to monitor the baby to make sure she is okay.

We as a family cannot praise enough everyone at the James Paget for their kindness, support and overwhelming professionalism.

Mr and Mrs HILL

Drudge Road

Gorleston

Schoolchildren

were wonderful

I WOULD like to extend a big thank you through the Mercury to the schoolchildren who came to the Market Place this week to welcome HRH Prince of Wales.

Schools that came along were St Nicholas Priory Middle, Cobholm Infant and St George’s Primary. It was wonderful seeing them all there waving their flags and it definitely added colour to a lovely day in the Market Place.

I would also like to thank TS Fearless 901 Winterton Troop Cadets for providing a guard of honour, once again they didn’t disappoint and turned up in their very smart uniforms. I hope all involved enjoyed being part of the Royal visit to the town.

Mrs LAURA GOODMAN

Mayoral and Civic Events Officer

Great Yarmouth Borough Council

Band delighted

to play a part

THE Great Yarmouth Brass Band were honoured and delighted to be invited by Great Yarmouth Borough Council to play in the Market Place during the visit of HRH the Prince of Wales.

We hope all who were present enjoyed our very varied programme conducted by our musical director Colin Swaep. Our assistant musical director, Stuart Philpot, will be participating in a charity cycle ride from London to Paris in April to raise funds for Marie Curie Nurses following the death of his father-in-law from cancer.

The band gave a concert at Christchurch on Sunday, February 19 to assist Stuart in his venture. The band donated their usual fee to the cause, and �810 was raised at that event.

Another concert by Great Yarmouth Brass is being arranged to take place during May to raise further funds. Information and tickets can be obtained from our website at www.gybrass.org.uk/

DESMOND SADLER

Chairman,

Great Yarmouth Brass

Siobhan’s letter

prompted memory

SIOBHAN Meades’ comments on the problems for the visually-impaired on shopping reminds me of a blind friend’s anger when I told her she had been wrongly informed over the colour of a purchase.

I would have thought by now there would have been more knowledge of handicapped peoples’ needs.

They are not likely to visit a shop twice if they do not receive sympathetic attention.

Miss RITA FARMER

Marine Parade,

Gorleston