An iconic design to complement town – or Gothic air raid shelters?

Last updated at 09:44, Thursday, 11 February 2010

SIR – On January 28, at the United Reformed Church in Whitehaven the plans for the new Albion Square development were, for a brief four-hour period, displayed for the benefit of the public.

setback: Albion Square plans

Being now retired, and having the time, I went along to have a look. What I witnessed was a scheme so awful as to almost defy description. But I will try.
Think submarine sheds at Barrow shipyard, or, closer to home, the old High-duty Alloys works at Distington. This hideous proposal will occupy land to the west of New Town and most of Preston Street, beginning at the multi-storey car park and continuing almost to the Ginns.
The design takes the form of a row of multi-storey Gothic air raid shelters constructed from corrugated metal, glass and glazed brick or tile, the whole monstrous edifice looming over the town like a street of gigantic mad beach huts!
While visiting the exhibition I was able to discuss the subject with a worthy and respected local councillor, who advised me that, such are the planning laws today, that if this dreadful design is approved by the council’s planing officers it is then virtually impossible for the elected councillors to prevent it!
We must all fervently hope these officers do reject it, for if they don’t, who will protect us and future generations from this madness?
Bill OLDFIELD
Castle Close, Egremont
What now for nuclear waste?
SIR – I note that, with great fanfare, the waste from Tokai Mura is at last being sent back, as agreed 30-odd years ago.
Perhaps the NDA should ask the Japanese what they are going to do with it when it arrives – since they seem short of ideas, other than just tip the stuff into a hole in the ground – when they’ve decided where to dig the hole.
And just how much radioactivity is left in those particular glass blocks is, presumably, one of those questions that one shouldn’t ask.
J TAYLOR
Dyke Street, Frizington
Stop tweeting and start talking
SIR – £600 per day for the stand-in council chief’s salary – Disgraceful! The people of this community are struggling on a daily basis to pay their household bills. How dare you! How can you justify such an outrageous salary?
Wake up Copeland. This isn’t a large city state such as London or Manchester. We live in a small semi-rural community!
No doubt we can look forward to soaring council tax bills this April to cover this travesty!
Well tweet this between your BlackBerries, Copeland Council.
Miss A M KENMARE
Address supplied
Simple way to reduce our bills
SIR – The leader of Cumbria County Council is asking the government to reduce the number of county councillors from 84 to 60.
I would go much further than this and ask for the six local authorities and the county council to be abolished, and be replaced by 84 councillors for a north and south Cumbria authority (two authorities), or an east and west Cumbria authority.
Cumbria has a population of around 500,000, the same as Sheffield. Sheffield has 84 councillors to manage everything.
Cumbria has 371 county and district councillors. Things cannot go on the way they are. This is not sustainable.
We would be able to have a huge reduction in council tax bills.
The police and fire and rescue services would need to continue as now, and cover the whole of Cumbria.
Ted CALEY-KNOWLES
UKIP Parliamentary Candidate for Copeland
Whitehaven
Suspension not always answer
SIR – I am probably not alone among Copeland’s ratepayers to be somewhat perplexed and concerned about the apparently very ‘trigger-happy’ habit of suspending council employees on full pay often for long periods, as a seemingly kneejerk response to allegations that happen to be made against them.
I happen to be a chartered, professional personnel manager as well as holding a Masters degree in employment law, so well understand the usual reasons for suspension and that it is, in law at least, supposed to be an entirely neutral course of action.
Based upon some detailed knowledge of some similar past Copeland employee suspensions and on my own, considerable, professional experience, I strongly suspect that the council mistakenly thinks it needs to suspend employees almost automatically.
Suspension is only ever usually necessary if the employee remaining at work might hamper full investigation or potentially lead to other significant problems.
Other than this, it is both unduly officious; a complete waste of money and an unnecessarily brutal and humiliating experience for the employee concerned.
Name and address supplied
Join our fight to stop new-build
SIR – The Lake District National Park Authority and Cumbria County Council are in agreement that Sellafield is now the ‘preferred option’ for proposed new nuclear-build. This flawed logic follows the shock-and-awe tactics of industry and our pro-nuclear government by including Kirksanton and Braystones in the ‘site selection’ process.
On January 27, Radiation Free Lakeland gave evidence in Westminster before the Energy and Climate Change Parliamentary Select Committee. Our message to the committee: no site in Cumbria is ‘suitable’ for new build – especially not Sellafield.
In 2009 there were two near emergencies at Sellafield, and in the Autumn the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate declared that the risks presented by the site were “far too high”. On January 22 there was another emergency with a stoppage of cooling water to the high level waste tanks.
Despite this The Times reported in November 2009 that the Government is drawing up plans for large spending cuts at Sellafield.
The Sellafield site is an accident waiting to happen, and I have no confidence that any site in Cumbria would be safe for a new reactor.
Any money available needs to be focused on minimising the dangers that currently exist. Such an approach would ensure job security for nuclear workers for decades into the future – and would also be aimed at avoiding the blight to other industries, such as agriculture and tourism, that would be caused by a contamination incident.
Despite the volatile nature of the existing nuclear wastes the industry has been given an indemnity by government which allows it to operate with pitiful public liability insurance of £140million, or, to put it another way, the same insurance that 28 exhibitors are required to have in order to attend the County Show. In the case of a serious accident at Sellafield, the taxpayer would foot the bill.
The extraordinary thing is that while the nuclear industry is not required to insure itself for radioactive waste liability –the Department of Energy and Climate Change is promoting the building of high burn up fuel reactors that will produce radioactive waste much more hazardous than the existing waste.
An artist – a fairly benign occupation – would not get away with not having adequate insurance arrangements of £5million to step inside a show marquee as an exhibitor. Meanwhile an industry at the very top of the polluting food chain is given special treatment by government – with a potentially unlimited draw on the public purse.
The Lake District National Park and Cumbria County Council should be protecting the future viability of Cumbria and say no to new build at Sellafield.
Write to: Robin Clarke, OPM, 252b Gray’s Inn Road, London WC1X 8XG. Email: energynpsconsultation@ opm.co.uk. Or telephone the Department of Energy and Climate Change on 0300 060 4000.
And say no to new build at Sellafield.
Marianne BIRKBY
Radiation Free Lakeland
Milnthorpe
Danger on Seascale beach
SIR – Every Sunday morning, between 10am and noon, a group of eight off-road motorcyclists ride from Sellafield, over the Calder footbridge, through the nature reserve, along the beach (six to eight abreast), up past the picnic/children’s play area by the boat club at Seascale. Sometimes they come up by the Millennium Pier through the picnic area then ride off towards Drigg.
On their way back from Drigg between 2pm and 4pm, they sometimes ride along the beach, over the narrow area of the sea defences, through the picnic area back along the beach towards Sellafield or along the narrow cycle path. Other times they come back along the road and then go back along the beach.
On one occasion the lead motorcyclist on the cycle path veered up several steps of the railway bridge and fell off. His friends found it funny, which it was, however had there been a dog walker coming down the steps as there so easily could have been, I’m not sure they would have found it very amusing as he ploughed into them.
This is totally irresponsible, not only environmentally but the risk it poses to people’s safety. It was only about three years ago that a motorcyclist died on the beach at Braystones.
What is going to happen if they seriously injure someone or, even worse, kill them? There are several cyclists, both children and adults who use the path as well as plenty of walkers and their dogs. Dogs and people run all over the beach as they are entitled to do and they have even less room to do it at high tide.
When we wish to cross the road we look left and right because we know that vehicles will be coming in both directions, and we teach our children to do the same. We do not expect them to have to be looking in all directions on the beach, picnic/play areas or cycle path for eight heavy powerful motorbikes coming at them in all directions. What’s wrong with the road? Everyone else has to use it to get from A to B.
The beach and little footpaths are not the place for motorbikes, there is a serious accident waiting to happen, which could have the possibility of ending up with someone on a manslaughter charge.
Name and address supplied
Support for rural manifesto
SIR – With the general election fast approaching, now is the time to ask those who aspire to be our MPs in the future what they will do if they are elected.
All too often, the environment and the countryside do not get the attention and priority they deserve from politicians, and they risk being forgotten altogether in the pre-election hubbub. But the next five years will be a critical time if we are to protect the countryside that is valued by so many people across the UK from inappropriate and excessive development, neglect and mismanagement.
So I am supporting the manifesto for the general election produced by the Campaign to Protect Rural England, and I have written to my local candidates calling on them to do so too. The manifesto calls for strong, democratic planning that will protect the countryside and create vibrant urban areas, protection for our best landscapes and the Green Belts around our towns and cities, and action to tackle litter and fly-tipping in the countryside.
You can read CPRE’s manifesto, and urge your candidates to support it, by visiting www.cpre.org.uk.
Mrs Gillian HUDSON
Mountain View, Drigg
My final words on the subject
SIR – Yet another overblown harangue from your correspondent C Farr, particularly directed against myself. He really does suffer from verbal diarrhoea.
It is obvious that Mr Farr did not take full advantage of the good education granted to him by the State, hence his inability to translate his misguided thoughts into brief and sensible prose.
I will refrain from commenting on the highly inaccurate slurs he has cast upon me, other than to say that his few supporters seem also to be infected with the same ailment – a divorce from reality.
In future I will not respond to any further gibes from Mr Farr as I prefer to communicate with others of a more cerebral persuasion.
Brian PARNABY
Ullock
Cook’s tour showed links
SIR – In your Copeland Crack column on January 21 you asked: Did Captain Cook ever sail from Whitehaven?
I have in my possession an Australian Survey map of The Cumberland Islands and The Whitsunday Passage that I was given during my visit to that country in 1997. Some of the places I have found in the area that was mapped by Captain Cook have often mystified me, they include Workington Island, Ireby Island, Black Combe Island, Alonby Island, Maryport Beach, Carlisle, Brampton, Helvellyn Rocks, Skiddaw Peak, Bolton Shoal, Solway Passage, Catseye Beach, Dent Beach, Whitehaven Beach, Moss Trooper, Border Island. (The spellings are from the map, not mine.)
I remember reading in an old book that Captain James Cook during his naval career served with the Customs and Excise patrolling the Irish Sea, did Cook and his men perhaps pursue smugglers into the Cumbrian countryside? If this was the case that would have familiarise him with the local names that he endowed onto some of his navigation points in the Cumberland Islands and the Whitsunday Passage.
If this information is correct then it’s possible Captain Cook did sail from Whitehaven at one time, even if he just called for supplies during his patrols.
John S LEECE
Whinlatter Road, Whitehaven
Time to end the political game
SIR – Silence in the courtroom. Silence in the street. Jamie Reed has just spoken at Prime Minister’s question time!
The speaker had to call for silence even amongst Jamie Reed’s fellow backbenchers, so that he could state that the Prime Minister is the only leader of a British political party who supports nuclear new-build.
Mr Reed persists in giving misleading information about Conservative policy on nuclear new-build, by planting a question to aid the PM in carrying on with this deception. The answer completely ignored the central issue to the question: obstacles in the planning system.
Mr Reed, you just do not learn do you? Conservative policy is supportive of nuclear new-build. How many times must David Cameron repeat himself, saying that nuclear is part of a mixed energy policy? Poor DC must be going blue in the face. No wonder he needs an airbrush! Greg Clarke (Shadow Minister for Energy and Climate Change) endorsed this policy on his visit to Sellafield last February, assuring workers and trade union officials that Conservatives will keep the UK committed to a new fleet of power stations.
Charles Hendry, pledging to speed up the planning process, is quoted: “I think nuclear is every bit as likely if not more likely to happen under us because of the urgency which we would bring in to address some of the delays”.
This is more than can be said for Labour, which has a history of opposition to nuclear power. The pro-nuclear stance was only adopted after they had been in power for ten years. The energy crisis was ignored until the looming threat of darkness overshadowed the Government. Mr Reed fails to acknowledge anti-nuclear politicians in Labour’s own ranks. Do the views of Michael Meacher and Elliot Morley make Labour’s commitment dubious? Labour is in a poor position when accusing Tories of being anti-nuclear.
Sensible MPs see a cross-party approach to the energy crisis as the way forward. This is the third time in recent weeks that Mr Reed has made less than constructive remarks. Jamie Reed’s intervention during Greg Clarke’s speech in January, attacking the previous Conservative government, met with this response: “I have been disappointed by the Hon. Gentleman’s recent interventions on this matter. I have followed his speeches over the years, and he has recognised the importance that his constituents and people in his region place on certainty and continuity of policy. However, just in the past few debates he has taken a partisan approach to these issues that is against his constituents’ interests. In the interests of their employment, he ought to reflect on the signals that he gives.”
Incidentally Mr Reed was not permitted to continue, so anything useful he had to say after that ludicrous statement did not get aired. Equating David Cameron with a war traitor, in December, was outright offensive.
I would share Mr Reed’s amusement at this playground politics, which he boasts about on his blog, if I did not have any concern for the area in which I live. He is exceedingly foolish to bite the hand that will feed this constituency. The guaranteeing of a reliable source of energy is far more important than this ridiculous degradation of debate into point- scoring.
Jane MICKLETHWAITE
Churchill Drive, Millom
Heart set on destruction
SIR – At 1pm on February 8, I witnessed a person on a cycle jumping up and down with the cycle onto the seats recently fitted outside the Civic Hall. Why do people try and destroy what is placed there for their pleasure and enjoyment.
The recent development had taken a number of years of hard work to develop, fund and finally construct.
It’s totally beyond me. Why do people do this?
Coun H WORMSTRUP
Harbour Ward
Scotch Street, Whitehaven