Your letters concerning education, retail, planning and elections

Here are the letters from this Friday’s Lynn News…We want to see your stories and photosWe are the Year 5/6 cohort at Greyfriars Academy. We are writing to ask if any readers have photos, stories and any other information about what our school was like in the past.

We are planning to have an exhibition about the history of Greyfriars Academy this July. In history, we have been learning about primary and secondary sources of information. Primary sources of information are invaluable.People that have attended Greyfriars, or St James’ Boys’ School, are perfect sources of primary information that will make our exhibition come to life. If you have any stories, photos or information about our school please email office@grf.unity-ed.ukYear 5/6Greyfriars Academy, LynnStore has zero service and no hospitality I’ve tried to complain to Sainsbury’s about their Lynn town centre store. There are never any manned tills so we have to use the self-service.I did that successfully on Monday only to have security rushing up behind me until I got past the alarm barrier. He had been to other staff members, all collected at the cigarette counter, with nobody at self-service had I needed help or to see that I had paid for my shopping. I’m sorry to say this store now has zero service and zero hospitality.E. Diprose LynnMy family’s involvement in Dunkirk event I was really glad to see that someone remembered the D-Day commemoration. The letter by Rev Jonathan Williams last Tuesday put it very well.Four years before D-Day, the Dunkirk rescue took place.In that Dunkirk story, there were many local men, especially from the 260 Anti-Tank Battery of the 65th Norfolk Yeomanry from Lynn.There were others in the county including the 259 Batttery from Swaffham.My family members in this were my father and his two brothers from Pentney and Narborough, Ernie, Gilbert and Jimmy Wright.Unfortunately, Jimmy was killed near Dunkirk on May 22, Gilbert was wounded but got home and Ernie got through apart from being in water for many days waiting for the boats to pick them up.My father Ernie got home on May 31.So, as Rev Williams says, without Dunkirk, D-Day possibly would not have taken place.After getting out and regrouping they were sent to Dorset to train for the desert battle and joined the 8th Army, the Desert Rats, under Field Marshall Bernard Montgommery (Monty to his men).This included El Alamein, the battle that changed the war in our favour at last.David WrightEast WinchChange to the voting system was slipped inDid anyone else who voted in last week’s Police and Crime Commissioner election notice that the electoral sysem had been changed from the previous time?Previously it was the Transferable Vote System (TVS) but now it is the First Past The Post System (FPTPS).The same change was also made for the Mayors’ elections in other areas.The TVS is designed to prevent anyone being elected that has not achieved 50 per cent of the vote, unlike the FPTPS.If after first preferences are counted no candidate has achieved 50 per cent, then the second preferences of everyone voting for eliminated candidates is taken and transferred to the two candidates who achieved the most votes. None of the officials at the polling station new why this change had been made, but it is the Government’s Election Act, which most controversially introduced voter ID (which certainly in the first elections which followed meant thousands of people were turned away from voting).But this change to the voting system was also quietly slipped in.The negative effects of this FPTPS was immediately seen when the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan was reported in the press as saying that a vote for the Green Party would likely let his main rival in. This, of course, does not happen in the TVS: people can vote for whom they like safe in the knowledge that their second preference vote can be used to stop a candidate that they don’t want elected.The Tories are well aware that the FPTPS favours the big parties at th expense of others.Reflecting on the overall results, it is clear that the elephant in the room has, not before time, started to stamp about!The fact that both the Conservative Government and the Labour leadership have made only muted criticism of the genocidal war being raged in Gaza meant that both parties’ canvassers met with a great deal of hostility on the doorsteps.Both parties bled votes and seats, but this is seen most clearly with Labour.Independents, mostly on anti-war platforms, gained 93 seats, exactly half of the Labour gains.It most likely contiributed also to the Greens gaining 74 seats. There are probably those in the leaderships of both main parties who hope this issue will soon go away.Unfortunately, due to the fact that Britain and the USA are still supplying weapons to the Israeli war machine, there is unlikely to be any quick ending to this war.There are important elections later this year both here and in the States.We will still be seeing on the TV civilians, mostly women and children, killed in Gaza, and in the case of an invasion of Rafah this killing will be intensified.It is no exaggeration to say that the positions adopted by Joe Biden and Keir Starmer in the coming period is likely to strongly influence who wins the presidency and whether or not Labour has a good workable majority.Kevin WaddingtonLynnNot surprised private school has closedI was distressed to read the Lynn News front page story about the threatened demise of a private school in Downham.As the average salary in the market town is only £27,000 it is little surprise that the school can no longer find sufficient parents to cough up between £10,400 and £15,760 a year, per child (meals not included).Perhaps our wealthy MP Liz Truss, who according to Sky News receives the highest hourly rate for a current MP at £15,770 per hour, could help by relocating her family home, and children, from leafy Greenwich to her South West Norfolk constituency.Philip WagstaffMethwoldThe conditions should be legally bindingYet again the vexed issue of new developments has reared its ugly head in West Norfolk. This time it is not the effects on parking, traffic, environment etc, but money.EAM Developments was granted planning permission by West Norfolk Council to transform a former mill complex into 22 homes in Whittington. As part of the agreement it was to pay money to support local schools, the library and a contribution towards the cost of maintaining a playing field.Now the builder is saying it is not financially viable to pay the agreed Section 106 payments. This is slope shouldering based on profits at the expense of needs.In future, the planning committee must be alert to reneging on deals, and from now on conditions should have legally binding prerequisites for permission, to stop rogue applications.David FlemingDownham