Bury Free Press readers' letters to the editor
Concerns over our environment form a large part of the postbag this week.
PENALTIES FOR LITTERING SHOULD BE TOUGHER
We are all concerned about plastic in our oceans but have your readers noticed the huge amount of litter piling up on the roads, verges and in the villages around Bury St Edmunds? It is time we got concerned about this, much closer to home ?
It is a disgrace that these litter louts should be so disrespectful of our environment to do this.
I assume these mindless idiots are lazy, do not care about our community and think other people should pay to clear up after them.
Given the quantity I have seen in recent weeks there must be a lot of perpetrators. I think we should all be more vigilant, report litter throwing when we see it and the penalties should be much tougher – can we bring back the stocks and pillory please ?
Willoughby Goddard, Hepworth
TOWN IS SHOWING THE WAY TO RECOVERY
I was very pleased to see reported (Bury Free Press, February 26) the proposals to redevelop the site of the former Edinburgh Woollen Mill and Waterstones in the Buttermarket at Bury St Edmunds by restoring the building as a boutique hotel.
Such a proposal is welcome and can only enhance the town centre of Bury St Edmunds as a go-to destination once the terrors of the Covid-19 pandemic have receded.
I was very disappointed when the former Suffolk Hotel disappeared from the street scene.
On visits to Bury St Edmunds it was often the venue for an excellent coffee break, interesting and welcome lunches, and superb afternoon teas. Living equidistant between Ipswich and Bury St Edmunds, the Suffolk Hotel was often the major factor in deciding where to go for weekend shopping.
Bury St Edmunds is indeed showing the way to achieve economic recovery post coronavirus.
Graham Day, Stowmarket
CLARITY NEEDED ON VACCINE JAB GAPS
Having received my first jab of the Pfizer vaccine, I was interested to see a recent discussion on a TV news programme between two top scientists, as to whether the gap between the first and second jabs should be up to 12 weeks – for both the AstroZeneca and the Pfizer vaccines.
Both scientists agreed that there is data to support this for the AstroZeneca product, but there was disagreement on the Pfizer one, where the manufacturer recommends a gap of three to four weeks.
One of the scientists considered, (and here I paraphrase), that from careful ‘extrapolation’, it is reasonable to apply the same time frame to both, and that there is no evidence of any erosion of performance from the Pfizer vaccine when the longer interval of up to 12 weeks between jabs is applied.
The other scientist disagreed, saying there was evidence from Israel, which indicated that such an extended gap between the first and second jabs for the Pfizer vaccine, could produce a reduction in the level of protection from a potential 90/95 per cent to 50/60 per cent.
Disagreement between scientists is not unusual. It would, however, seem to be in the public interest for some evidence based clarity to be made available.
The UK vaccination programme has been a remarkable success. However, given the massive investment involved, it is obviously important to optimise the performance of each of our various vaccines. Failure to do so would be akin to buying a winning lottery ticket, but not claiming the prize.
John Castell, via email
GREENE KING WILL END UP PLEASING NOBODY
Greene King is to rename its pubs called The Black Boy because, to quote CEO Nick Mackenzie in lthe Bury Free Press: “There is a perception that it is linked with racism.”
Well Nick, there are always different perceptions related to any subject. My perception is it is complementary and must surely add to the current demand for more diversity in the country.
Avoiding negative perception of anything is impossible and I fear Greene King has set itself an impossible task. It may soon be required to cease providing IPA, India Pale Ale, as this was produced to supply British troops stationed in India during the Raj and could therefore attract condemnation for having racist and oppressive connotations. Others, including myself, will think otherwise.
I think Greene King has fallen into the trap of trying to please everybody and will end up pleasing nobody. It is silly and sad.
Jim Hubbard, Thurston
NOT ALL DOG OWNERS ARE ABLE TO ‘PICK UP’
Copy of a letter sent to West Suffolk Council in response to its dog fouling campaign:
I have received your dog fouling campaign and wanted to ask you to add another category as to why dog fouling occurs ie owner vulnerability.
We (the charity Our Special Friends) support people in need and there are many situations when responsible dog owners are not able to pick up faeces due to spectrum of reasons e.g. mobility, dementia, sensory loss, arthritis. We had a young owner with a brain tumour who was not able to bend down due to the dizziness that it caused.
I can totally see the need to stress the importance of picking up dog faeces but I feel strongly that it is not helpful to demonise people involved. Invisible vulnerability is widespread and there are many genuine reasons that faeces are left; usually completely unintentionally. Please would you add this category of owner vulnerability to your list and also suggest that if people are willing and able that when ‘picking up one, could they pick up two’ to help us all keep the environment well maintained and clean for everyone to enjoy?
Dr Belinda Johnston, Our Special Friends
THANK YOU FOR A JAB WELL DONE
On Saturday, February 13, me and my husband had our Covid jab.
I would just like to say how very well organised it was at Guildhall Surgery, Lower Baxter Street.
I had a lovely doctor from West Suffolk Hospital who explained everything.
I wish I’d thanked them all for a good job, well done.
So if any of them sees this letter, I would like to say thank you all.
T & D Rose, Bury St Edmunds
MURAL WAS MEANT FOR LOCAL PEOPLE TO ENJOY
I am writing concerning the removal of the Banksy mural in Nottingham. It seems to have been ‘bought’ by an Essex-based art-collector who, if I understand correctly, has said that it will be on show in Moyse’s Hall, here in Bury St Edmunds, at some point later in the year.
The mural was located in one of the less affluent parts of the city; it was meant for the people to enjoy, not to be treated as an ‘investment’, by a well-heeled art-collector, hundreds of miles away.
I do not intend to launch into a diatribe on the nature of art – this has been ongoing for over 2,000 years and shows no sign of abating yet. I do, however, feel that this demonstrates clearly what Mark Carney (Governor of the Bank of England until 2020) said in his Reith Lectures, over the Christmas period. Namely, our society has become one in which so much has been ‘monetised’- i.e. if something has no market price, it has no value.
Public art is often ephemeral and is there for the public to enjoy while they can. It should not to be ‘privatised’, and the public allowed a glimpse, at a certain time, in a certain place, before it is taken away and hidden to ‘preserve’ it. Its value far outweighs its market price.
Martin Webb, Bury St Edmunds
RESIDENTS ARE BEING KEPT IN THE DARK
It seems under the guise of Covid and a winter lockdown, that residents are being kept in the dark about what is going on in their own locality.
The council has substantially reduced the number of notifications they send out of planning applications that will affect them. The excuse is probably that it is ‘cost saving’, but it gravely hinders the democratic process.
Remember The Lantern/Gaslight building in Tayfen Road? This took residents completely by surprise when it grew taller than they, and everyone else, had anticipated.
Lockdown means people cannot have meetings to discuss what is going on and unless you bump into a neighbour on a walk, information cannot even be exchanged by word of mouth.
In all walks of life, the government nationally and councils locally have used Covid as a means to bypass the democratic process.
A court last week ruled the Secretary of State acted illegally by not publishing details of contracts awarded during the Covid pandemic within the required time – but did you hear that on the news? Our democratic heritage is being whittled away and we must challenge our right to be heard at every level. In these days of email, surely councils could notify residents of planning proposals in a cost-effective manner, thereby keeping residents fully informed.
Marilyn Sayer, via email
SPEEDY YOUNG DRIVER CAUGHT OUT BY LIMIT
We have lived in the historic core of Bury for over 20 years and speeding cars have always been a problem – not helped by the totally inadequate signage.
During lockdown lower volumes of traffic have encouraged even more speeding .
On Monday afternoon, when walking up Whiting Street, a young man in an open sports car came speeding towards me, I indicated for him to slow down – he did and stopped! He asked what the problem was and I asked if he knew what the speed limits was – he answered 30mph, I suspect the answer which the majority of your readers would give.
When I told him it was 20mph, I am pleased to report he apologised and very sedately drove off.
David Bedford, Bury St Edmunds
NEONICOTINOID BAN SHOULD STAY IN PLACE
Neonicotinoids, the branch of insecticides which are banned in the EU must also remain banned in the UK.
Advice given to government in 2018 by the Advisory Committee on Pesticides (ACP), was that ‘the committee recognised the importance of these seed treatments to sugar beet cultivation and that such uses are currently authorised. However, ECP advises that on the basis of the evidence presented, particularly in relation to the potential degree of environmental risk, the case has not yet been made to grant an emergency authorisation for this use (UK Expert Committee on Pesticides August 2018)’.
Lobbying by sugarbeet interests (farmers and British Sugar) is aimed at allowing use on sugarbeet seed. There are alternatives e.g. in Germany and Denmark some organic beet is grown (Nordic Sugar pays almost twice as much for organic beets than it does for non-organic making this a good opportunity for farmers) so dire warnings by farming interests are self-centred. Additionally, not only pollinators are harmed by neonicotinoids, as they find their way into watercourses so harming aquatic life.
Following Brexit, we can now see what many feared, that ‘taking back control’ would mean, among other things, the watering down of EU standards on food production and herbicide/pesticide use. Perhaps voters at the May county council elections could elicit the views of Conservative candidates on their government’s approach to such green issues.
Eddie Dougall, Walsham le Willows
CALL FOR MP TO SUPPORT CLIMATE BILL
Copy of a letter sent to Jo Churchill MP:
We are writing to you today to urge you to support the Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill.
The CEE Bill addresses two emergencies; the climate emergency and the ecological emergency and the damage on the ecosystems we depend on for our very survival.
We know that a lot of your time is taken up with the public health crisis and Brexit deadlines.
However, we can’t lose sight of the crisis that’s threatening our very existence: The climate crisis. The need to effectively manage to climate emergency is critical.
The 2018 special report by the UN intergovernmental panel on climate change set out that to prevent runaway climate chaos, we need ‘rapid and far-reaching transitions’ that are ‘unprecedented in terms of scale’. We cannot accept that this scale of action is ‘impossible’. There will be extremely difficult decisions to be made. Decisions that the government cannot be expected to impose without the people of this county understanding and agreeing with.
The Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill seeks to transcend the Climate Change Act of 2008 as the major piece of climate legislation in the UK. It aims to bind the government to a new ruleset when considering the environment. If passed, it will enforce the massive changes needed to combat the climate crisis in a short time span.
The CEE Bill calls for five major changes:
1. The government to make a serious climate action plan.
2. For further carbon calculations to take into account the hidden overseas carbon footprint. Currently, the government takes responsibility for only half of the UK’s actual carbon footprint, ignoring the vast emissions generated abroad to produce goods and services that are imported and consumed in the UK. The bill would make sure the UK takes responsibility for its true carbon footprint, and reduce the climate and ecological impact generated by supply chains.
3. The protection and conservation of nature both in the UK and its overseas supply lines.
4. A move away from the ‘technology will save us’ rhetoric.
5. Establishment of a Citizen’s Assembly with real power on the climate and ecological crisis.
The Bill would establish a citizens’ assembly, a randomly selected group of people that would reflect the diversity of the whole population. Drawing on expert advice, this assembly would recommend measures for tackling the crisis, before they go to parliament for scrutiny.
This would be a highly effective method of garnering the support of the people of the United Kingdom to support laws that political parties find controversial to implement on their own.
The Bill would also protect vulnerable communities. Deprived and marginalised communities are particularly vulnerable not only to the impacts of the climate and ecological crisis. The bill would rule out policy solutions that disproportionately impact vulnerable people.
Some sectors with high emissions or high ecological impact cannot be sustained in their present form. The Bill would ensure a just transition for workers in impacted sectors by providing financial support and retraining.
With the recommendations of this representative ‘mini-UK’ the government will be supported in making the tough policy decisions that are absolutely critical to our survival before it’s too late.
A new citizens’ assembly would put people at the heart of that strategy through a process of deliberative democracy informed by expert advice. The bill, recently tabled in parliament as a private member’s bill by a coalition of MPs from six political parties, now needs to gain the support of a majority of MPs to be passed into law.
The idea of Citizens’ Assemblies is not new. They have been used successfully all over the world. France has recently had their Convention Citoyenne pour le Climat referring several proposals on climate change to the French government for action. The convention was tasked with identifying measures to achieve a 40 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels ‘in a spirit of social justice’. The convention has called for a referendum on whether to enshrine environmental protection in the constitution, and on introducing a new crime of ‘ecocide’ to the French penal code. the assembly’s 149 concrete recommendations have been referred either to the legislature or to a public referendum.
The Bill is not just important for the UK. If implemented it will make us the first affluent country to embrace global responsibility for our full carbon footprint. Not just for the emissions we generate on our own shores, but also the emissions we generate overseas through our supply chains. This could trigger a healthier international conversation on global emissions and responsibility. What an important role for the UK to play.
With the UK set to co-host the next round of international climate negotiations (COP 26), this would certainly be the right moment for real leadership.
Jo Churchill, we members of your constituency and local constituencies call on you, as our Member of Parliament, as a member of our community and as a fellow citizen, to pledge your support of the Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill.
Matthew Rowe; Steph Holland; Julia Wakelam; Mark Ereira-Guyer; Rachel Churcher; Ruthanne Radlett; Debbie Greenslade; Zenna May; Christabel Kiy; Hilary Dickinson; Mac Robertson; Belinda Powel; Rob Brooks; Jason Sparks; Paul Rynsard; David Jackson; Hannah Jiggins ; Suzanne Morse; Sarah Gull; Warren Lakin; Colin Holmes; Anna Neale; Julie Baxter; Robert Possnett; Jane Powell; Kerry Lansdown; Mike Blows; Nyssa Cole ; Olivia Holmes; Nicola Forsdyke; Martha Copeland; Edward Gent
Email your letters to letters@buryfreepress.co.uk
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