In our weekly letters, a reader criticises council leaders’ plans for the town…
I see nothing strategic in their thinking
Your Local Paper (our sister title) led with a fascinating headline that promises much – a strategic vision to meet the needs of Lynn.
To deliver will need a major culture change for the whole community, led and inspired by our leaders.
Firstly, what are our needs? Who has decided these? Have these been shared with anyone? Does Joe Public agree with them?
At school, we are taught teamwork, underpinned by good communication – given and received. Many organisations and companies produce missions, visions and business plans, developing agreed values with their staff and customers/service users.
Communication is key. Is this going to happen with the masterplan? Consultation is mentioned, but has anyone who has been consulted been listened to?
Could this be made less formal and bureaucratic, with ideas shared on platforms, with access to summaries of progress?
Cllr (Simon) Ring says we will be creative, inclusive and dynamic. All very laudable. At the same time, we have several strategic plans.
Are these going to be developed by the same sort of people who had the vision to let our hospital fall into its current state, long after the shelf life of the buildings, and who want to build a ‘strategic’ multi-storey car park in one of the bottlenecked areas of the town?
Who lacks the ambition to find a new site with exciting options beyond the current boundaries?
Trees with preservation orders have been destroyed to cram more into the existing site. We are overrun by political expediency and short-termism.
A revolutionary traffic management system must be part of the masterplan.
The riverfront is an underused asset with huge potential. Boat trips? Litter-free? Currently, it is dominated by parked cars, disconnected buildings and businesses.
Hospitality is a major area where opportunities will arise. Does the college have courses that gear us up for this? Simple and waitressing and waiting skills would greatly benefit our community.
Excuse my cynicism, but I see nothing strategic in current thinking. We can’t even build houses without massive disruption and little supporting infrastructure.
A new roundabout on Edward Benefer Way, followed by more temporary lights for a pedestrian crossing, followed by more at the same place shortly after.
Knights Hill (what happened to the opposition?) is another project where apparently a bus lane is thought economical.
Around the town there are few lay-bys for buses to keep traffic flowing. The same strategic people who modified the nice wide Oak Avenue junction with Castle Rising Road into a tight turning that encourages vehicle into the middle of the road and then puts a bus stop on the road, where there was originally room for an inset.
Oh! And aren’t we in debt with the Guildhall project?
I wish Cllr Ring well with the masterplan, long live the cultural revolution!
Robert Gardner
South Wootton
Farmers are abandoned by you, Mr Jermy
So (South West Norfolk MP) Terry Jermy states (Lynn News, September 19), while visiting Grange Farm, he “will be backing our farmers and as a Government we will not abandon British growers”.
Well, Mr Jermy, by voting in favour on December 4 last year for the new Inheritance Tax policy, you’ve done the exact opposite.
Your Government has caused untold damage and stress across the whole country and not just here in South West Norfolk.
Jackie Lambert
Lynn
What did they think would happen here?
I don’t know why anyone in West Norfolk Council should be surprised or concerned about the long-drawn-out death of Lynn’s High Street and the scruffy demise of the entire town centre.
Surely it occurred to the wizards who dreamed up the idea of creating a massive retail park on the outskirts of Lynn that the shoppers would not drive into town when a cornucopia of options for retail therapy was closer and easier to access.
West Norfolk Council deputy leader Simon Ring talks of community consultations, injections of money and other ‘initiatives’ but it comes too late in many people’s eyes and frankly this depressing scenario of High Street decline can be majorly attributed to those on the council who promoted the idea that retailers ambushing shoppers before they got into town would be good for businesses in town.
It’s laughable to witness these tepid efforts to ‘Save the High Street’ from the very body which is the instrument of its downfall. What did they imagine would happen when they created a huge shopping park on the periphery of the town? Words fail me.
Steve Mackinder
Denver
They do say that charity begins at home
The villagers in Great Bircham are upset over an outdoor gym being moved from one side of a large field to the other, which is surely turning trivia into a drama.
It is understandable that a police officer doesn’t want it impinging on his own home with all the ramifications, including the value of the property conceivably falling.
The property owner is quite right in refusing to talk about it as hearsay, and gossip can be destructive in a closely knit community, and he took matters into his own hands to get a job done, allegedly through temporary membership of a local authority. In the process he overcame village apathy.
All credit to him for his initiatives and decisive actions. Serving the public in the police is commendable, but charity begins at home!
David Fleming
Downham
We have such groups in the UK right now
One useful definition of ‘terrorism’ with which few would argue is thus: “Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war against non-combatants.”
The definition applies not only to international actions but also to domestic ones, for instance, the terrorising actions of right-wing demonstrators inflicting violence on peaceful protestors.
I have just read an account from a consultant anaesthetist at a major hospital in London about the fear of staff in that hospital caused by so-called ‘patriots’ threatening violence on anyone not white during the latest protests.
Some of the staff who were delivering healthcare did not dare to travel home. In what sort of world do these terrorists live to justify terrorising people whose professions are to heal wounds and administer care?
Whatever one thinks of groups in other countries, we have terrorist groups in our midst, and just because they wave the Union Flag they are not justified in using violence.
Their vision of the UK is a warped one. All this serves is to raise the profile of a political leader who pays no taxes to the UK, is hardly available in his constituency, owns four houses and nets £900,000-plus through secondary jobs.
The majority of the UK despise violence and bullying, but there is a faction among us that attempts to enforce their vile image of prejudice and false image of society on the rest of us even to the extent of using violence.
Their image is false and it is puerile. It is based on infantile insecurity. It resembles an image of a spoilt child screaming ‘Look at me!’.
It is also scapegoating of a vicious kind.
The real image of society should be that of when I go to Mass on a Sunday morning. Ignore the religious aspect but reflect on the cosmopolitan one: the congregation consisted of a multitude of races who valued each other, helped those who needed help, wished each other ‘peace’, and afterwards had coffee and cake. That is our society..
Mike Larcey
Downham
Picture of the Week
Weekly Cartoon
