Another casino for town and delays in opening public toilets concerning letter writers this week

Letter writers express concerns over slot machine arcades, public toilets and a hospital rebuild in this week’s Lynn News letters page…Casino will send our town to the dogsThe Lynn News front page last week told of plans to open a gaming centre in Lynn. Judging by public anxiety and reservations expressed by some West Norfolk councillors, it is a wake-up call.

Casinos are dens of corruption and material opportunism, usually going pear-shaped socially.At source, the mandatory Gambling Act enacted by central government precipitates the problems of these centres and the hands of local authorities get tied, when considering planning applications.The Admiral Casino is symptomatic of how successive morally devoid governments have endorsed gambling and all its manifestations. Income from the industry is viewed as money for old rope, but it is the vulnerable and impressionable who hang themselves.Gambling becomes a vice when it costs the chancers more than money through loss of employment, homes, family and, disastrously, self-esteem as examples. This practice is inexplicably linked to crime and poverty; small wonder the police are unhappy. It all points to a bleak future for Lynn as an extension of a nation of gamblers, including betting and lotteries.There are plenty of wealthy bookmakers, but poor punters are in plentiful supply. The few win at the expense of the majority who lose!This new casino will send ‘King’s Vegas’ to the dogs beyond the perils of a greyhound race meeting. David FlemmingDownhamWhatever is the council thinking of?It was with deep misgivings I read of the West Norfolk Council’s decision to allow yet another 24/7 gambling centre to open in Lynn’s shopping centre. Whatever are they thinking of? Do they not realise the harm it will do? Not just to the people who are drawn to it, but it will do nothing to attract shoppers to the town.It is appalling to think that this is permitted to go ahead when we are in desperate need of more coffee shops, more pound shops, more charity shops, and, not forgetting, more barber shops.Just saying.Michael Church LynnWill it be ferry or toilets first?Are bets being taken for which will be open and running first?The ferry at West Lynn or the toilets at Downham Town Hall car park?Thomas Eggett DownhamI guess that’s the end of any kind of review for new siteThe news that our Queen Elizabeth Hospital’s CEO has left the role with immediate effect suggests Keir Starmer’s cost-cutting axe has struck its first blow.Alice Webster’s tenure has been dominated by efforts to improve poor CQC ratings and steer ‘her’ crumbling hospital through the choppy waters of the rebuild process while still maintaining full medical coverage on the same site.

Despite repeated calls for a massive rethinking of the location and serious concerns about the wisdom of trying to pour a quart into a pint pot, it has been embarrassingly obvious local concerns have never been genuinely addressed. Ms Webster’s regular declared assurances about her personal determination to shepherd us all safely into the new world with the new Queen Elizabeth Hospital have clearly proved to be little more than empty noise and now all these seismic management changes have happened before we’ve even put a spade in the ground to build the hideous multi-storey car park.With the new management now feeling its feet, I’d guess we can kiss goodbye to any dreams of reviewing the other infinitely more spacious ‘New Queen Elizabeth Hospital’ sites again.But whatever happens, it will be without Ms Webster, and time will tell whether this move benefits West Norfolk or adds to our woes.Steve Mackinder DenverPictures of the Week

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