Your Letters - January 25

REGARDING your coverage and photograph in Bexhill Observer of November / December 2004.

After a lengthy campaign by the residents of Hazel Grove, the telecommunication mast in Gunters Lane, erected by Orange on November 24, 2004, was finally removed on Thursday, January 17.

On behalf of those affected by this blight on their property I would like to thank Mr Gregory Barker, MP, Mr Graham Gubby, former leader of Rother Council and our local councillor, and former mayor, Mr Stuart Earl for their support and invaluable contribution in persuading Orange to relocate the telecommunication mast to a non residential location.

Beryl Fawkes

Hazel Grove

Lurid headlines

I AM writing to protest at your sensationalist headlines of the previous two weeks. Two weeks ago your six word headline "Why did he kill his wife?" was four times larger than the accompanying four paragraphs of "story." Your misleading headline hid the fact this man has effectively been assumed by the police of murder - a dangerous assumption to make without proof. A convenient solution for all concerned however - especially with your helpful headline, asking why someone did something before it had been proved they actually did it.

As your paper shows each week the local police fail to solve most of the minor crimes committed in Bexhill, yet they "solved" this one in a couple of days. This innocent man did not need to be so portrayed on your front page, forever named as a wife killer.

Last week your front page was even more disturbing. The five word headline took up most of the page - yet it was mere sensationalism again. Another innocent man (as all are prior to conviction) was named and shamed because he had been accused of something 30 years ago. An allegation made the front page. With picture! Most guilty verdicts fail to reach your paper, let alone the front page.

A quick look at the "story" however showed it should have been relegated to your inside pages at best. The headline, if one was necessary at all, could more realistically have read "Man accused of indecent assault 30 years ago by unnamed men." You also cheekily added "the unmarried former vicar" - a blatant innuendo aimed at guilt by association and the homophobic amongst your readers.

Any allegation of such a sensitive nature should receive bare minimum coverage prior to any verdict; remember this country still clings to the ideal of innocent until proven guilty. Your paper would do well to reflect this fact, instead of printing huge lurid headlines months before any trial takes place. This man is an innocent man today, tomorrow and until proven otherwise. Perhaps you could start including that in your headlines?

You also named a dead man similarly accused; the second dead person in two weeks unable to counter your headlines or these 30 year old allegations.

The most unfair and biased part of course, is the way you print these men's details for all to see and keep the accuser's names hidden.

Witnesses in murder or terrorist trials don't enjoy such immunity, but if you accuse someone of touching you 30 years ago you enter a form of witness protection scheme American gangsters would be proud of. This applies even if your allegations are shown to be unfounded, and you lose your case. These men are over 40 now. If they make an allegation, they should have the guts to do so publicly.

This is why there are so many false sexual assault allegations nowadays.

As an educated reader of your paper I am greatly concerned at your descent into the sort of gutter journalism normally found in the tabloids.

Please desist from such sensationalism designed merely to sell papers and return to a more balanced, rational reporting of the news. Leave the lurid front pages to The Sun and other red tops.

S TAYLOR

Cooden Drive

College in-take

Firstly, may I thank you for the deserving words written in the Observer Comment section of the Bexhill Observer on Friday 18 January 2008 with regard to the impending retirement of our principal, Tony Campbell. His 20 years at St Richard's Catholic College have indeed been very successful on many levels.

However, I would politely like to point out to those critics to whom you refer in your editorial comment that St Richard's Catholic College is not a selective college based on ability. Pupils who attend the college are admitted by the Governors (the Admitting Authority) based upon the Admissions Criteria, a copy of which I have attached for your information. The criteria refers only to the catholicity of the candidates or to other denominational commitment. It does not refer in any way to the academic ability of those who wish to become a part of the college community.

The Governors (the Admitting Authority) are legally required to follow, to the letter, the criteria for admissions as published and procedures in respect of appeals to independent appeal panels.

Our recent OFSTED report (November 2006) points out that "Students enter the college with just above average attainment. By the end of Year 11, students attain standards that are exceptionally high, making outstanding progress to achieve challenging targets. Excellent systems for tracking students' progress ensure that, wherever students start out, they reach their potential." I should also point out that approximately 20 per cent of the college student population is on the Special Needs register. The college serves a student population which is fully comprehensive in terms of ability and social background. It is also very proud of the ecumenical composition of the religious mix within the college community which comprises approximately 20 per cent of other Christian and non-Christian faiths.

I hope these facts finally put the record straight with regard to the comprehensive intake at the college and that critics who seek to explain the outstanding academic achievement by pointing to selection as the reason for this should look to other reasons such as the commitment of the staff, the Christian ethos and the outstanding leadership of the principal and his leadership team.

May I take this opportunity to thank you and your staff for the excellent support you continue to give to St Richard's Catholic College.

P Champion

Chairman of Governors

School standards

THANK you for publishing the GCSE School League Tables for our local secondary schools. They made interesting reading!

Well done to St Richard's College and Claverham Community College.

However, results from the remaining schools are extremely disappointing. At three schools over 70 per cent of their candidates did not achieve five GCSE "A to C" passes, including maths and English, and even at our own Bexhill High School six out of every 10 pupils entered failed to meet this standard. Surely this must be a minimum requirement for our young people when they leave school to seek employment or higher education.

Concerned parents need to be pro-active and put pressure on the LEA, county councillors, head teachers and school governors to take urgent steps and improve teaching standards in our secondary schools.

Here in Hastings and Rother we still have a mountain to climb before ALL our students can expect to leave school with the necessary basic qualifications to equip them for a decent job with future prospects.

PETER WATSON

Wealden Way

Prom rights

MANY thanks for your coverage in the last two weeks of the controversy surrounding the council's decision to erect a bollard on Channel View West, without consulting residents.

Elderly and disabled residents of Channel View and Marina Court Avenue will find it hard to get out and about, or bring home bulky shopping under the council's current proposals.

The council has had a longstanding policy of not enforcing the 1912 bylaw, letting cars and vans on to the promenade for brief loading and unloading. It has made discretionary exemptions for council contractors. If it is too difficult for council workers to walk 50 yards to empty bins on the prom, how can the council refuse to see the impact of their decision on elderly and disabled residents living on the prom?

As it stands the bylaw appears to ban the use of electric wheelchairs or mobility scooters on the prom, showing that it is an outdated piece of legislation. Readers who use powered scooters should be warned that, if the council chose to enforce the 1912 bylaw, they could face a 50 fine and a criminal record for simply using the prom.

It is clear that the council should use their powers to update this bylaw.

We have tried to enter dialogue with the council, but they seem unwilling to discuss the matter in depth to see if a better answer can be found. We would like to see evidence of a problem and the risk associated with current patterns of usage. We want to see concrete reassurances from emergency services that the delay in reaching homes will not put lives in danger. We would like to see:

* An open review of the 1912 bylaw.

* Full consultation with residents.

* A commitment from the council to pay particular attention to the needs of elderly and disabled residents.

ANTONIA CHITTY

Channel View

No show

AS a local taxi driver, I had occasion to transport a customer to the De La Warr Pavilion to book up for the forthcoming opera.

The pavilion was closed. A notice on the door said bookings could be taken over the phone or online.

What about people wishing to book up for shows that do not have a credit card?

Why couldn't the pavilion open up the shop opposite that they occupy, as a temporary booking office?

Or was it too much trouble?

We hand a lot of our council tax to this organisation. The least they could do is to consider all of the local community. Perhaps they will close the premises down and hand back the revenue saved in doing so to the council.

B. Randall

Cantelupe Road

Needed boost

SADLY, John Williams (Letters, January 18) appears sadly to be stuck in the past when it comes to the DLWP.

Luckily for the future of the Pavilion and Bexhill, he is not involved in the running of it. We can therefore look forward to some exciting exhibitions and events in the coming year which will attract many visitors and give a much needed boost to the local economy.

STEPHANIE WEBB

Collington Avenue

Park spend

TO quote Victor Meldrew from TV's One Foot in the Grave, 'I don't believe it'. Our dear councillors are now thinking of spending 1m on Egerton Park. Where is all this money coming from? Out of the tax-payers pockets of course.

We've recently heard of proposed spending of 600,000 on West Parade, add to this the scandalous cost of the Christmas lights, and the amounts involved are mind-boggling to say the least. They seem to have the idea in their heads that they can do whatever they want with our money, regardless of the cost. Where is the moral conscience of these people?

J TOLLETT

Bidwell Avenue

Such kindness

ON Saturday after shopping at Sainsburys midday, I found my handbag missing on returning home. I was very upset and worried as it contained not only money but my cheque book and bank card etc.

I would like to thank the kind, honest lady who found my handbag and handed it in to Sainsburys. Unfortunately I do not know her name but I would like her to know how grateful I am, also to the police who collected my bag and were very kind to me at the police station.

B BAILEY

Bedford Avenue

Prom laws

THE two letters in your last issue regarding the promenade and the enforcement of by laws, provide an opportunity to air, in context, the concerns that I and others have regarding Rother Council's disingenuous position on forbidding vehicular access to the promenade for the residents of Channel View and Marina Court Avenue.

There is a by law, dated 1912, that forbids vehicular access to the area known as The Pleasure Grounds, other than for a "perambulator or a chaise drawn or propelled by hand or a wheeled chair drawn or propelled by hand and used solely for the conveyance of a child or an invalid." This by law, as can be seen from its wording alone, was created for a different age and for a very different situation, when the area from Channel View to beyond Park Avenue was dedicated, prior to the building of the De La Warr Pavilion and the creation of the adjacent car park, to walking space for Edwardian seaside visitors.

A council officer even stated, recently, that consideration had been being given for some time to updating this particular by law.

Without occasional and sensible vehicular access for the residents of Channel View and Marina Court Avenue, disabled support, emergency service access, removal and delivery of garden materials and heavy general deliveries, amongst other needs, will all become subject to serious problems, if not impossible.

Custom and convention over a considerable number of years have allowed good old British common sense to prevail, with the toleration of occasional, reasonable short term access to the promenade, for local residents and their agents. Abuse of this tolerance is, in my and all other residents I have talked to, very unusual indeed. We, after all, have no more wish than any other Bexhill resident, to have vehicles parked, regularly obstructing our delightful sea views. Therefore, to precipitately choose to enforce an antiquated and by today's standards discriminatory by law, strikes me as both high handed, inconsiderate especially to the disabled and finally, unnecessary.

For those who are residents in Channel View and Marina Court Avenue, this is an extremely serious situation. I would therefore ask the residents of Bexhill to be supportive of any attempt that might be made to encourage Rother Council to re consider their ill-thought out plans to physically block the promenade to any vehicular traffic. This support could be received through the letters page of the Observer or alternatively by sending any letters of support to me at the address given below.

Neil Chalmers

Marina Court Avenue

Black sacks

"It's A Rollover!" I am referring to the mounting piles of black sacks seen on the roads and pavements.

Since Christmas some residents have overflowing bins and black sacks everywhere. They were warned you say, we were informed that we needed to be more careful over Christmas and not to over indulge.

I think on the whole most households have made a good effort and the queues at the tip and recycle points were evidence of this. However there will always be the individual who can't be bothered and thinks it doesn't apply to them. We are left with a growing problem hence the "rollover effect".

The external company who collect the rubbish follow the rule as stated by them:

"Please note that we cannot take rubbish left in bags or containers other than that contained within the black wheelie bin with the lid shut."

But as they have followed this rule exactly and the extra bags from Christmas have not been taken we have a continuous surplus.

What does that mean to you and me who follow the rules! Well for me after a long day at the office when all I wanted was a bath and a cup of tea it means being greeted at the front door by three black sacks of other people's rubbish having been dumped by some neighbour not being very neighbourly. They were split and there was rotten food all over the doorstep. I felt so angry that someone had done this.

But who is going to sort it out something needs to be done to sort these problems out, we will always have people who don't care about the planet and won't make the effort. The idea of charging a fine for not recycling properly is ridiculous it will only increase the amount of fly tipping we could end up with neighbours at war!

I feel proud to be part of a recycling community and don't want these individuals to ruin what we have started.

Cheryl Carter

Chandler Road

Tory path

AFTER much ducking and diving, bobbing and weaving, David Cameron's Conservatives have broken cover at last. In recent days the most senior Tories have launched swingeing attacks on immigrants, the unemployed, benefit claimants and the sick. Music to the ears of assorted fascists, racists and the sneering class, as the Tories return to their old stamping ground of laying into those whom they did so much to disenfranchise when they were last in power in the 1980s and '90s.

And underlying this is the attempt to rewrite history, particularly their part in it. In fact the Tories would rather we forgot everything that happened before the great diaspora of 1997. How they decimated our agricultural, manufacturing and industrial base, squandered our North Sea oil and gas, and how that has left us one of the most vulnerable of countries to global turbulence with high unemployment, debt and a record balance of trade deficit.

None of this is to let the government off the hook either. In its promotion of big business and the unfettered "free market", privatisation and deregulation and a generous tax regime, Labour has done precious little to reverse this critical weakening of our country. Even down to their parallel attack on local democracy and accountability. Labour offers us neo-Stalinism while neo-feudalism seems best to describe what the Tories have in mind. Either way neither has a place for democratic representation.

So, it's back to the future for the Tories as the modernisers and reformers give up the unequal struggle.

STEPHEN JACKSON

Second Avenue

Post Office

ONCE again, a letter from a "new local" who cares deeply for this unique and lovely seaside town, Bexhill.

Having written to your good selves upon the subjects of the concerns passed on to me, whilst taking coffee and pastries at the DLWP and cafes - in the past few months ie. lack of bins along main roads, lack of toilets in the town, the criticism of the DLWP etc - I now have many persons' concerns about the facilities of the post office.

As sub post offices are being closed locally, does this mean, the main post office in Bexhill, shall then be fully staffed?

Upon viewing numerous times for myself, the queues double and treble with only three to four cashier points in service. My sympathies to the staff of the post office. So, if there be a saving from the closing of two much needed sub post offices, (ignoring the very costly advertisements on TV for the friendly post office) then surely four more cashiers could be present at the general post office, Bexhill. Logical, don't you think?

- What say you locals? Another petition maybe?

VALDA WARREN

Church Street

War record

DO you know what your father or grandfather did in World War II? Well I need to know. I am currently researching a book on the 124th Field Regiment Royal Artillery (Northumbrian) (Territorial Army) 1939-1945 to write their wartime history. 124th Field Regiment RA was part of the 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division known as the Tyne Tees Division. The Regiment served on the south coast, Cyprus, Iraq and North Africa where 287 Battery was lost. After forming a new Battery from the semblance of 287 and a troop of 288, 489 Battery was formed.

As a 25pdr Regiment under the Artillery reforms it was joined by 441 Battery (Sussex) (TA) to make it up to a three Battery Regiment, before taking part in operation Huskey, the invasion of Sicily. From there the Regiment returned to Great Britain to prepare for the invasion of Northern Europe.

The Regiment landed in France in July 1944 and worked its way right up to Nimagen as part of 30 Corps in Operation Market Garden. (Those 25pdrs firing in the film a "A Bridge Too Far" could have been them). The Regiment was withdrawn back home with the disbandment of 50th Division in December 1944.

If you think that you have a relative that may have been part of 441 Battery, I would like to know? And can be contacted at Keith Brigstock, 9 Vale Road, Pewsey, Wiltshire, SN9 5HG or email [email protected]

If you would like more information please see the historical data section of our web site www.thegarrison.org.uk

KEITH BRIGSTOCK

The Garrison Event Co-Ordinator

Mistral delight

I FEEL I must write in defence of The Mistral Bar / Restaurant prior to the take-over on New Year's Day.

I held my 50th birthday party down the Mistral Bar last summer and was treated to a fantastic buffet for 120 people which I was not charged for, not one complaint about the standard of food, drink, hygiene or service whatsoever.

The next day had lunch for 20 and had a fantastic lunch.

New years eve I was one of about 90 people who enjoyed another fantastic free buffet and a great night.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish the previous owners the best of luck in any new venture and hope its not long coming or too far from Bexhill.

Andy Hannah

Park Road

Hearty thanks

THE Bexhill fund-raising committee for the British Heart Foundation would like to thank all those who helped collect and those who donated at Tesco Ravenside on January 11 to help raise 278.

We will next be collecting at Sainsbury's, St Leonards on Friday, February 8.

We are always in need of volunteer collectors and if anyone would like to offer their help, please ring 01424 222522 and ask for Jacky.

Jacky Chrisp

Royston Gardens

Retired teachers

MANY people have probably never heard of the Association of Retired Teachers in the Bexhill area. We have an enjoyable meeting once a month with a speaker. We have an annual Christmas lunch.

This was a very enjoyable occasion with a good choice of menu. If there are any retired teachers, or those who have been connected with education who would like to join us, we would be very pleased to make them welcome. Please ring Mrs Geall on 846234.

VALERIE COLMAN

Ridgewood Gardens