Your letters - August 13, 2010

Gallery show doesn't appeal to me

SOME weeks ago my wife and I went to a car boot sale at Catsfield and then on to Bexhill, with a view to enjoying the latest art display at the De La Warr Pavilion.

Unfortunately, instead of an art display they also appeared to be running a boot sale, for scattered all over the floor were numerous items such as clocks, tools, cycle parts and household bits and pieces etc.

Our immediate reaction was that RDC was trying to offset the reduction in government handouts to the Arts Council by raising money in this way. Jolly good for Rother, we thought.

But how wrong can one be, for on enquiring, we were informed that this floccinaucinihilipilification (bric-a-brac) was in fact a piece of artwork by a Japanese lady (with an unpronounceable name) who had spent hours (all night) covering the floor with this load of nonsense.

We then returned to Catsfield - the displays there were so much more interesting...

John Hill

Glengorse, Battle

Euro MP's field day at our expense?

Even here, in the supposedly affluent SE region, the recession has hit many families with redundancy and austeer measures to tighten belts.

In January the Battle Observer printed my letter exposing the downright affront to us by the Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and other EU officials who were allocated tax payers money, our money, to send their children on skiing holidays.

Well, now I have discovered an even greater insult to our appeasment to Brussels rule.

The latest insult to our hard-won taxes is that MEPs and other EU officials can claim the drug, viagra, free on their insurance which basically means that we foot the bill.

Is there anyone reading this that is able to get viagra free? Of course not; viagra is simply a sex aid. Quite simply tax payers are paying for the pleasures of EU bureaucrats. There is worse to come as, not only can they get you to pay for their sex-aids, but they can get you to pay for implants.

These operations costs thousands; 'thank you tax payers', they say. So you think that it can't get worse? Well, how about this, they get you to pay for their leisure times. I've mentioned their skiing holidays but add to this their massages, feng shui. mud baths, hydromassage and mild electric shock treatment; yes, all paid for by you, the tax-payer.

Personally I think that you are wasting your time to write to EU bureaucrats to complain; they are on a spree at your expense; why should they work to pay for what they can get for free? It is time to get angry and protect our hard-earned taxes by other ways. Suggestions?

Tony Smith

Brownbread Stud, Ashburnham

Seafarers thank you for support

May I thank the residents and visitors of Rye Maritime Festival for their generous support for our collection for the Mission to Seafarers, which raised 139.52 for this worthwhile cause, which gives advice, help and support to seafarers, no matter what religion, colour or nationality.

We nowadays tend to forget the hardships these men and women endure to bring us what we regard as our everyday needs.

Bill Wicking

Rock Lane, Guestling.

We should plan towards our future

Thank goodness someone in Rye is working towards a different governance and planning structure for our historic town - and, on our behalf, seeking qualified advice.

Writing before the event, I hope Thursday's meeting was well attended by all the interested and responsible parties.

In last week's Observer ('Council Votes No To Mayor.') Cllr. Paul Osborne quite rightly asked what Bexhill would think if they were run by a Mayor who lived in Ticehurst or Camber. Cllr. Osborne and his fellow District Councillors should also be asking the citizens of Rye how they feel about being run by what is in effect Bexhill's town Council. However carefully Council officers give them informed briefing, the real planning decisions for our town are decided by the distant Rother District Council and their chums in Lewes and voted through by a majority of Councillors on the far side of Hastings or Eastbourne who know very little about our modern and ancient Cinque Port. This is not local democracy.

Your Udimore Road front page photograph and article ('Building Starts On New Homes') illustrates all too starkly how the Rother District Council manages to actually celebrate their continued failure to pursue Rye's interests in serious planning debate, consultation and decision. Over the next few months we still have detail, implications and decisions to be made in Bexhill or Lewes for the new Sainsburys, for Tilling Green School, the FE Centre, Central Garage - and eventually South Undercliff and the Freda Gardham School.

We are also asked to monitor the final consultation process on the now postponed Local Development Framework which will be establishing future Udimore Road style developments in whatever parts of Rye are considered ripe for future development or exploitation.

Shall we make sure this time that we have our own voice in the debate and decision-making by insisting that the planning structure for our town is improved and democratized?

John Howlett

Love Lane, Rye

Time to give up on Link Road?

WE note from the Hastings Observer of August 6 (Fight for 'pivotal' link road continues) that the county council is 'pulling out all the stops to make sure that the Bexhill to Hastings Link Road (BHLR) gets the go-ahead' and that councillors are 'going up to London on a regular basis'.

We would like to remind the council:

* That the BHLR holds little promise of new jobs, merely relocating old ones (80 per cent) in places likely to increase car commuting.

* In 2009, the BHLR was the second worst UK local authority road scheme out of a total of 59 schemes assessed for their calculated CO2 emissions.

* That the scheme will deliver two per cent more CO2 than if it were not built, and nowhere near the Climate Change Act's requirement of a 14 per cent reduction by 2020.

* It will deliver a 10 per cent increase in CO2 by 2050 whereas an 80 per cent cut is required.

* The 'value for money' assessment of the road is skewed by the discredited practice of giving money values to many very small time savings that would be imperceptible to any road user - essentially useless.

Measures to address the 'lack of connectivity between the two towns' noted by the new chief executive of the county council have been only sporadically explored since 2002 by the authority itself. Only BHLR has been pursued while other measures identified in a government funded study of that year have been pushed into the long grass.

The future envisaged by the promoters is one of car based, land hungry developments which have plagued us for many years and landed us with the problems associated with climate change, examples of which we see reported from across the globe on a regular basis.

The BHLR itself isn't only a tired and outmoded scheme, it is potentially highly damaging to any prospect of sustainable development.

The guise adopted by the councillors on their regular trips to London can only remind us of a group of used car salesmen trying to sell a second rate C02 belching banger fit only for the scrap heap at a massively unaffordable price. It can only be hoped that should any moment of enlightened thinking occur among them while in the capital, they may notice and enjoy the wonderful public transport system around them and the high quality car-free open spaces.

There would be many more important calls than the BHLR on 100million of public money in normal times. In the current economic climate that's even more true.

We say to the promoters: 'For Hastings and Bexhill's sakes - scrap it and put your creative energy into making the towns a model area for a sustainable 'low carbon economy' - and save our high quality open spaces'.

NICK BINGHAM,

Chairman,

Hastings Alliance for Sustainable

Transport Solutions