Your letters - February 5

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Floodlights objections

THE planning decision on the floodlights at Little Common football pitch seems to have been taken only on the technical specification data of the lights, no mention whatsoever has been made of the other concerns raised by residents.

In my opinion it would appear that the committee have totally ignored these concerns.

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We have a valid argument in that, the planning officer recommended refusal and in passing on the points raised by residents, noted on just one point (the effect on house values) that it was not a planning issue, it therefore follows that all the other objections were valid and should have affected the decision.

This doesn't seem democratic, as if the application had been refused the applicant is at liberty to resubmit a number of times, however the objectors who feel that their views have not been addressed have no recourse under the system.

As I have said in my objection, at the moment I don't have any issues with the football club. As things stand the inconveniences during the daytime are something you expect living near a public space and functions are usually over by late afternoon. Floodlighting and all that follows with it however will completely change the situation.

I have no confidence in Rother District Council as a resident and ratepayer; it seems to be more concerned with having events staged, rather than looking after the environment and well-being of their residents

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You only have to look at the recent article in this paper about the decision to allow larger crowds and increased noise levels at the Polgrove despite the objections of residents, to form an opinion.

This doesn't bode well for the level of support we will have from our council when the Turkey Road landfill site proposal finally gets under way!

R GROOMBRIDGE

Peartree Lane

Bexhill

Servants of the people

I THINK it should be of concern to all right-minded people, that there appears to be a distinct lack of democratic process within

the decision making mechanism of

Rother District Council's (RDC) planning

committee.

I refer to the recent decision to allow floodlighting on Little Common Recreation Ground. In reading the committee's own report, it is clear to see that only one of the many valid and real objections was considered, the rest were ignored.

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It should also be of concern that, apparently, only the planning applicant has right of appeal, the objectors do not. There is something fundamentally wrong here, for even in a Court of Law, both defence and prosecution have right of appeal.

Furthermore, it is worrying to note that the planning department recommended rejection of the application, based on all the valid reasons put forward by the objectors.

Again, this was ignored by the planning committee.

Whatever the criteria used by the committee to assess this application, it was clearly biased towards undemocratic process. I should like to know what professional qualifications the committee members have which allow them

to deliberate with educated expertise on planning applications, or are they just lay people hoping that good luck and low profile will get them by?

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Given the ferocity of objections and the planning department's recommendation for rejection, one has to ask why these were ignored. Could there be something abjectly more sinister waiting in the wings?.

If we are going to have trust, honesty and democratic process throughout our local government, then perhaps it should begin with the more arrogant members of this planning committee being reminded that they are servants of the people, not the masters.

TONY CLARK

Peartree Lane

Bexhill

Food for thought

I READ with great interest (motoring festival idea by John Ellis) in last week's letters to the editor.

I would like to enlighten anyone interested in this idea with some food for thought and insight.

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We the 1066 Cruisers Rod and Custom Car club are also based in Bexhill and host an annual car show at Catsfield the first weekend in August. It is a three-day day event for participants and open to the public on the Sunday.

All the organisers and helpers are non-paid volunteers, with the aim to host a show and raise some money for charity. Obviously, if insufficient funds are generated to clear the costs of hosting a show, we would be forced to abandon this event that we have been hosting for the past 11 years.

The show ethos John Ellis writes about is loosely based on our take of a car show. We have a live band and auction on the Friday and Saturday night in a marquee, a lunch-time cruise on the Saturday through Battle, Hastings and a Bexhill stop off for refreshments on the sea front opposite The Mermaid. With permission, insurance, risk assessment, marshals and a deposit duly paid to our local council, we are then allowed to display our vehicle on the promenade lawns.

The major difference is we charge the Sunday public a nominal entrance fee, which is crucial from a financial viewpoint. I can't see how you could charge the public for a show hosted in a public open space. It would be very difficult to enforce, which would leave charging traders, entrants and corporate advertising to fund the costs of a show as an alternative. I am not sure if that is a financially viable proposition, especially in our current economic climate. As the chairman and an organiser of our show, I know only too well the implications and burdens on hosting a financially successful car show.

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The Bexhill 100 Festival of Motoring of years gone by was a great weekend celebrating Bexhill's role as the birthplace of British motor racing, with people coming from far and wide to view and to participate in this spectacle of motoring through the years. It was a truly sterling effort by the many local people who organised and ran this event. I don't know exactly why it ceased to be, I do suspect it was based around finance and ever-tightening health and safety regulations.

KIM FREEMAN

Chairman

1066 Cruisers Rod and Custom Car Club

Family history request

I HAVE been researching my family history for some time and have now obtained the Military Services Records for relatives who served in the Army in WWI and WWII and the RAF in WWII.

Whlist the records are fascinating they are also full of abbreviations and initials which I cannot.

Would anybody be able to help me with this? My phone number is 01424 846540.

KATHY VIGGERS

Broadoak Lane

Bexhill

Try shed makers

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DURING my time as a manager in industry there were a number of occasions when the company I worked for were invited to take part in 'prestigious' design and make competitions.

We were always pleased to do so because it gave apprentices something to experiment with. On occasions we won. Subsequently we invariably gave the item to an experienced engineer for appraisal and evaluation of its commercial viability.

I never remember one of these designs making it to production.

The designs submitted for the promenade shelter competition may have been on headed paper from a prestigious firm of architects but it would be foolish to assume that the drawings came from a 500 an hour partner. Neither should we be surprised that the 'winning' design was hastily withdrawn.

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Ten-year-olds draw exotic racing cars but no-one would want to drive one.

But neither would you want a car designed by a rocket scientist. Car designers have the most appropriate skills.

A promenade shelter is nothing more than an exotic shed and there are plenty of shed manufacturers around, each one having some form of design team with the knowledge and experience commensurate to the task. The money saved on unnecessary architectural fees could better be spent on ensuring that the best quality materials and the finest craftsmanship are utilised in the manufacture.

Gold leafed letterheads won't keep the wind out.

FRANK WOOD

Collington Lane East

Bexhill

Wave goodbye

YOUR letters page in last week's Observer was a comprehensive indictment of the Rother Council's plans for the sea front.

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It amazes me that the leader of the council and his closely associated councillors together with the misguided council officers can persist in their arrogant disregard of suggestions from the public.

Do they not realize that they are destroying their reputations so completely that the town will be left with a series of very costly white elephants.

They seem to think that having made a series of faulty decisions there is now no possibility of withdrawing any of their schemes.

May I try once again to show what they must do: -

1. Withdraw all instructions for their architects and pay them for work done.

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2. Forget CABE and their offer of a grant explaining that we can now do without them.

3. Institute a new policy of constructive co-operation with the town, its population and its businesses.

4. Show an intelligent, practical and cost effective approach to good house keeping, stimulation of business, and, if you like, re-generation.

It is not difficult but it does require some thought and production of ideas, not just fancy treatment by architects.

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5. If you cannot do it yourselves there are plenty of people in the town who would help at no cost to the council.

BASIL R.STREAT

Cantelupe Road

Bexhill

Thanks to team

ON behalf of Ron Wells's family and myself, I would like to say a very big thank you to the Living at Home team run by Rother District Council.

Ron had a bad fall just before Christmas and broke his arm and as he lives on his own the team have been looking after him, visiting four times a day from 6.30am to 8.00pm and they have never missed one call - even in all that very bad snow and ice.

He is now fully recovered and the family wish to express their gratitude to the team.

P DE BOURDE

Harewood Close

Bexhill-on-Sea

Sensible and constructive views can make a difference

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I OFTEN talk to people who have strong views about the proposals for the seafront and other major issues affecting the town, but who either keep their views to themselves or only discuss them with their like-minded friends.

When asked why they don't let the council know how they feel, they usually say; "What's the point? They won't take any notice."

If you do put forward sensible and constructive views they can make a difference.

In May last year I discussed with RDC's project manager, on site, the dangers I foresaw in turning Marina Court Avenue into a "shared space" cul-de-sac.

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The following month I wrote to all councillors and HTA, the architects, expressing the same concerns.

In his response to my article on Marina Court Avenue last week I was therefore very pleased to be informed by Councillor Starnes that the original Next Wave proposal to turn Marina Court Avenue into a cul-de-sac is not now going ahead.

I am not claiming that SOS's views alone caused the rethink but, if you make your views heard instead of keeping them to yourself, you just might make a difference!

RON STORKEY

Chairman, Save Our Seafront

Follies on landscape

I CONTINUE to be irritated by Coucillor Starnes' attitude to the seafront shelters issue.

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He seems to be determined to impose on Bexhill what can possibly best be described as follies, given the location they are intended to grace.

He tells us we will be given "shelters which can't be found anywhere else in the world", but it does not seem to have occurred to him that this is because others with a seafront location do not want them.

No doubt we will be told the shelters will win an architectural design award, but the majority of us, judging by the numerous letters to the Observer, would be unimpressed by this news and would see this as secondary to winning the approval of local residents for their suitability.

Surely we already have our fair share of follies in the form of the balls in Devonshire Square.

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I cannot seriously believe anyone feels we need more inadequate ornamentation.

How close does Councillor Starnes live to the seafront, or how often does he use the facilities there, I wonder? Does he really want these folly shelters to be a lasting memorial to him?

I suggests he visits Eastbourne to see how the council there have used the colours blue and cream to unite their seafront and then returns and looks at the lack of a unifying colour scheme in Bexhill.

It is surely time for the wind of change to blow through the council; I suspect many of us know what we would like it to blow away, and it would not be the existing shelters.

CAROLE WOODLAND

Cooden Drive

Bexhill-on-Sea

Invaders in my garden

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SINCE I was a child I have spent many happy times on Bexhill Downs, climbing, playing football, walking the dog and blackberrying. Now as an adult, I do the same with my children.

Living as I do - very close - you tend to take this oasis for granted, especially when you spend many hours at work and your life revolves around the mundane things that we all have to contend with.

Consequently, for me, for the last few years the Down has been largely ignored, not helped by the fact that I lived away from the close proximity for a few years. Now I'm back, and oh how things have changed.

The Down is fast becoming a forest. By its very name and nature the Down should be covered with gorse bushes, but many of the areas where I played as a child are now wooded.

The effect in my garden is very marked.

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Where I once had chaffinches, blue tits, thrushes, robins and the like as regulars, with the occasional visits from the more exotics such as goldfinches, greenfinches etc I now have been inundated with the less welcome variety of birds '“ some of them '“ killers.

Crows, rooks, endless processions of pigeons, and I once counted (during the breeding season) 17 magpies arguing on the roof of my garage. The cacophony of sound was horrendous.

Many of these are nest raiders of their smaller brethren, and I am convinced that these marauders are largely responsible for the demise in numbers of the "nicer" variety of birds.

And where do these bandits roost? In trees of course. The ones that are allowed to grow seemingly unchecked on our Downs.

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Do we want these invaders taking over? They already harbour many undesirables, not to mention some of the human kind.

At night the down is now an eerie place, offering a hiding place behind every tree. The trees themselves are a valuable resource, so why don't we harvest this resource and return the land to its native state of gorse bushes and say goodbye to its new and unwelcome inhabitants?

I for one won't be sorry to see the last of these robbers in my garden.

Trees have their place, but we already have woodland where we can wander, the Highwoods and Collington woods being the largest immediately spring to mind, and there are many other smaller versions around.

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We only have one Bexhill Down, lets keep it '“ the way it was meant to be, mainly to yellow flowering gorse and our small hedge-loving native birds that go with it.

P COLEMAN

Little Common Road

Bexhill-on-Sea

What about the Bexhill 100?

I'VE just read the letter from John Ellis (Observer letters, January 29) through for the second time and still can't work out whether it's supposed to be a joke or not.

If it is I don't get it. If it's not why did he write it?

At best it shows he must have only just returned to this country after a number of years abroad and so doesn't know any better.

At worst it's an insult to all those who worked so hard on the long running Bexhill 100 motor show.

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As an an 'ex chairman of an international car club' he should be aware of the wonderful show that it was.

ROGER SIGGERY

Little Common Road

Bexhill

Tied by Health and Safety

I WONDER if any of the people complaining last week about the lack of effort from traders to clear the paths outside their shops actually ever stopped to think, before they wrote such strong letters running down the traders, that there might have been a good reason why they didn't.

Its just not as simple as Years Gone By, all traders have the Health and Safety regulations hanging over their heads and we all know the sometimes ridiculous situations that can come to light concerning implementation. I am a shop owner in Little Common and I was very keen to clear the path outside my shop, but shop owners were advised by Health and Safety experts "not to clear the paths in front of your shop if you do you could be liable if someone has an accident".

Maybe this warning had something to do with the council doing nothing - it would be interesting to know!

BRENDA FREEMAN

The Village Hair Shop

Little Common

Wonderful Suffragettes book

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CONGRATULATIONS to Bexhill Museum curator Julian Porter and volunteers Claire Eden and Yvonne Cleland for producing such a wonderful book on the town's Suffragettes in the years leading up to the First World War.

As John Dowling mentions in his Observer review, the book tells the story of the local Suffragette movement exactly as recorded in the pages of the two local newspapers, the Observer and the Chronicle.

What he probably was not told was the number of hours the trio put in going page by page through some 300 editions of the two journals, then recording each relevant entry, scanning it and transferring the image to the computer.

I certainly recommend it, not only for telling the Suffragette story as it happened but for the light that it throws on Bexhill during the period 1912-1914, 'before the lights went out over Europe'.

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I would urge all who have not yet visited the museum since we reopened, to come along without delay to view the newly extended Quest for Equality temporary exhibition before it closes.

Even for those who have visited since July will find many new exhibits including, in the costume gallery, a sensational catwalk fashion display from Battle Abbey School.

Why not become a member of the society? Subscription rates are: single 13, family 20(any combination of family members up to six). Members are entitled to unlimited free visits to the museum, 10 per cent off museum shop purchases and reduction of entry fee to lectures and the geology courses to be run during March and April.

Finally, I would ask if any readers have a favourite toy they would like to loan for our next temporary exhibition running from April, entitled Toys and Childhood, to contact Julian Porter on 01424 787950 or just bring them along to the museum.

JOHN BETTS

Trustee

Society of Bexhill Museums Ltd

Heart goes out to dog owner

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MY heart goes out to the owners of the two Yorkies who were attacked by two leadless Staffs.

When is there going to be something done about irresponsible dog owners? And not just a tap of the wrists.

I had my Yorkie killed in 2008 on the seafront by an Alsatian.

The police did nothing except reported it to the dog warden who in turn warned the owner to muzzle the dog. It cost us 150 to have our dog cremated and we couldn't claim a penny back. What if, as Mrs Hemsley said, it had been a child?

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It's the same when a dog fouls the paths and I offer the owners a bag (as every responsible owner always has a bag stuck somewhere on their person). All I get is a lot of verbal abuse.

I hope Mrs Hemsley's Yorkies are recovering, as dogs also get very traumtised and do not forget.

KAYMARIE SHEPHERD

Buckhurst Road

Bexhill-on-Sea

Sidley in days gone by

Turkey Road in the 1930s

STARTING at the Sidley Triangle - narrow by the garage wall,

opposite was a row of cottages - then Sidley Infants School,

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The headteacher very strict - she lived in the School House,

Behave - or stand in the corner quiet as a mouse,

Sometimes we all went to church - to sing and pray,

We were let off school - the rest of the day,

Aunt Ann and Uncle Cliff - were very queer and quirky,

Living in Arncliff Terrace - and they kept a bow-legged turkey,

The red-coated grammar school pupils were well-behaved - surprise?

The girls had one half the school - the other half for boys,

A very busy phone box - was opposite Gunters Lane,

A Postman's nightmare - no numbers on houses, just a name,

At the cemetery gates - a few buses turn'd each day,

Opposite was a stonemason - chip chipping away,

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The brickyard had two chimneys - I'm glad I wasn't a steeple jack,

The men worked hard - wheeling up clay on a little railway track,

My best memory is when the nightingales sang at night,

And the banks all lit up with glow-worms - sheer delight.

OLD JACK BRAIDEN

Buckholt Lane

Sidley