Your letters

Let’s speak out like they do in Whitnash

Thank goodness someone with authority has to spoken up Whitnash to consult over the proposed closure of The Lawns care home in Whitnash.

I believe it to be an appalling scandal that there has been no general public consultation by the County Council on this issue. It is all well and good to consult residents and relatives but the issue has even more potential for all our lives than the recent announcement of the Warwick Fire Station closure. We are all heading for old age.

The genuine public meeting in Whitnash was actually organised by Cllr Kirton acting for the community at large and not by the council. All power to him, but I am alarmed at the prospect of the possibility that other homes such as Park View in Warwick may be sacrificed to keep The Lawns at Whitnash open for lack of public protest, even for the lack of the opportunity for Warwick residents to protest.

I take the view that all ten care homes are indispensable. At the very least, the closure proposals should receive full and open debate throughout Warwickshire.

The consultation meeting, organised by the County Council, held at The Gap Community Centre on August 31, was for relatives and representatives of Park View only; members of the general public were excluded. Nevertheless it was a well attended meeting and councillors and officials went away with message that there was unanimous opposition to closure.

It’s right and proper that residents and relatives be consulted separately but at the meeting we were told that the council had no obligation to seek general public opinion and had no intention of doing so.

Was that true of the recent Fire Station debate? If so was it public pressure, such as the Whitnash residents are bringing to bear on their care home issue, that opened it up to wider scrutiny? Why is it only happening with respect to the The Lawns in Whitnash? Are Warwick people punch drunk after the fire station protest? Is it that we need to elect an independent councillor in Warwick? If I lived in Whitnash Bernard Kirton would get my vote!

Ian Meddoms, All Saints Road, Warwick.

No strike threat from National Grid staff

Your article, ‘National Grid staff say they will strike’ (September 10) contains misleading information which needs clarification. There is no planned strike action by National Grid employees. The employees you refer to in your article work for Eurest Services, (who provide services such as cleaning, catering and security at this National Grid site) and Eurest Services is also not aware of any planned strike action.

Contrary to comments made in your article, Eurest Services has made every effort to make contact with all of its employees who work at this site in Warwick to resolve any potential issues with their pay.

Our HR team has run an HR drop-in clinic for employees and I have also visited the site to talk to all employees and offered to meet with them privately on a one-to-one basis so they could raise any employment-related grievances.

All our employees at this site have been given my personal mobile number so they can call me to discuss any concerns they may have.

While I recognise that we did have a small number of pay issues when we changed our payroll system earlier this year, I can find no evidence of any long term pay issues with individual employees that have not been resolved and no one came to meet with either the HR team or myself to express such concerns.

Our people are key to the success of Eurest Services and I am extremely proud of the hard-working, dedicated team we have working at the National Grid site in Warwick.

It is a shame therefore that confusion seems to have arisen relating to matters of pay and I would continue to encourage anyone that has concerns to speak to their line managers or myself directly so any issues can be resolved as quickly as possible.

Steve Davies, managing director, Eurest Services (FM), Compass Group UK & Ireland, Denham, Uxbridge.

Bus questionnaire is way off the mark

I am one of the sample sent a questionnaire by Warwickshire County Council which has taken over responsibility for the Concessionary Travel Scheme for older people and people with disabilities.

There are questions on the questionnaire which are totally out of order. We are, for example, asked to describe our ethnic origin as White; Black or Black British; Asian or Asian British; Mixed: or Chinese or other ethnic group. If, by some process of ‘politically correct’ thinking, our ethnicity has anything to do with our use of buses, why use the term Black or Black British, but just White and not White or White British? Some of the questions – as stated – are asking for the colour of our skin. Since when in this country has that been a matter of importance regarding bus travel?

And what has it to do with concessionary bus travel whether our faith is None; Christian; Buddhist; Hindu; Jewish; Muslim; Sikh: or Other?

And why should we be asked if we are Heterosexual or straight; Gay or lesbian; Bisexual; Other: or Prefer not to say? This is outrageous. There is no possible value in this intrusive question.

I find it difficult to understand how any council could sanction such a questionnaire and it should be promptly withdrawn in its present format.

The introduction to the questionnaire includes the statement that: “We are consulting a targeted number of groups to seek their views and the impact any proposed changes may have on citizens of Warwickshire.”

Please keep any consultation to issues which are relevant. There are plenty of them! Ruth Johns, Castle Close, Warwick.

Should our money be spent on cameras?

Like literally millions of others, Philip Nordberg (letters September 10) is the victim of a draconian so-called ‘road safety’ policy based on a lie - the lie being that road safety can be defined by whether or not people adhere to some arbitrary number.

Mr Nordberg obviously managed to exceed these arbitrary numbers without causing an accident, just as lots of people manage to do every single day.

Look past the official ‘speed kills’ propaganda and you’ll find that exceeding the speed limit accounts for only around five per cent of accidents, which is why, while the speed camera programme has been very successful at raising revenue, it’s not been very successful at making our roads safer.

Of course those responsible for speed cameras will claim otherwise, but then they can’t even be honest about what these cameras are, dubbing them ‘safety cameras’ when in reality all they do is catch drivers exceeding some arbitrary number – which in the right conditions can be done perfectly safely.

The truth is that the whole ‘driving by numbers’ approach to road safety enforced by speed cameras is so deeply flawed that the only way the authorities can get it to show the accident reduction figures they want is by fiddling the figures.

They’ve been shown to have done this several times, even getting a warning from the government’s own statistics watchdog over bogus police figures last year.

It’s also telling to note that the accident rate in Swindon has actually fallen since speed cameras were deactivated, which is also what happened when speed cameras were scrapped in Ontario.

Speed cameras are hugely unpopular, they’re ineffective in safety terms and they cost local authorities a fortune to maintain and operate (with some policemen raking in thousands of pounds a year in overtime payments manning speed camera vans).

So with budget cuts in the offing, maybe Warwickshire Council (or the Courier) should ask the public what they’d rather have their precious tax money pay for – bobbies on the beat ready and able to fight crime or draconian devices that can do nothing other than catch speeding drivers?

Graham Bell, Leamington.

Good luck and safe driving to visitors

Poor Philip Nordberg, victim of the ruthless Warwickshire Police speed camera hit squad! But I must warn him that Warwickshire only deploy around 20 cameras, and those neighbouring nasty Coventry copppers about a dozen, compared with 60-odd cameras in his own home patch of Surrey, which obviously he doesn’t realise.

My advice, Philip, is to lock your car up in your Surrey garage and walk, rather than cringe in your bunker at night in terror of the dreaded knock at dawn from the vicious Surrey speed Gestapo (Gatso-po?).

And whilst embattled Philip puts up his barricades and battens down the hatches, we from safe Warwickshire can say “Thanks for the tip-off, Phil, we now know not to go anywhere near Surrey. Good luck and safe driving”.

John Walker, Primrose Hill, Warwick.

Unreasonable parking by sports car driver

Kenilworth is a great, friendly, little town where people seem to feel an obligation to show reasonable behaviour to fellow residents.

I guess that is why we sometimes take it too personally with those who don’t think that the minor rules apply to them. I came out of Waitrose on Sunday(plenty of parking available) to see a pearlescent two-seater sports car abandoned rather than parked at an odd angle in the no park zone just outside the door.

Well done to that driver who managed to get even closer than if he’d taken someones disabled space.

I served in the country’s armed forces 22 years, sometimes, in danger of my life, and don’t feel I’ve earned more right than the next man to abandon my car where I want.

It would be great to know why this person thinks they have additional rights to the rest of us. Craig Berry, Kenilworth

Missing from Tory newsletter

A new way of governing arrived in May this year. One where people from all sorts of backgrounds work together to tackle the challenges that we face, based on fairness and transparency.

So why does the “in touch” newsletter from the local Conservative party delivered to Kenilworth residents in just the last two weeks make no mention whatsoever of Conservative council plans to increase adult care charges by up to 400 per cent in the next nine months?

Instead the newsletter boasts how the futures of both Kenilworth fire station and Kenilworth Nursery have been saved. But let no-one forget that it was local community activists who were at the start and heart of campaigns to defend these bodies.

Let no one forget that it was Conservative council proposals that had jeopardised their future in the first place.

Tough times require honest, open and fair decisions. They require innovative solutions, including looking at sharing services with other councils and a greater role for the voluntary and community sector.

Conservative councillors say in their newsletter that they “are committed to achieving expenditure savings”.

My challenge to them is to confirm that these savings extend in equal measure to the more than £0.75 million of allowances currently claimed by county and district councillors.

There should be savings made here too if there is to be truth and justice at the heart of local government.

Richard Dickson, Barrow Road, Kenilworth