Last updated 16:35, Thursday, 24 July 2008

SIR – Through your newspaper I would like to declare my opposition to a parish/town council for Whitehaven. This would be a tier of authority we could well do without.

With the cost of living rising to a point where people on fixed incomes are struggling to make ends meet, an increase in council tax brought about by a precept levied by a parish/town council, would be stressful for the people of Whitehaven.
I would urge the people of Whitehaven to make their views clear to Copeland councillors, that they are opposed to a parish/town council.
D B LEE
Windermere Road
Woodhouse 
SIR – I find it a wonder that we have been asked if there should be yet another level of council.
Copeland Council cannot balance their books and expect the tax payer to foot the bill, paying outsiders to do it.
The poor tax payer has to help the council to balance its books, yet they think that we should also pay for another level of council. In the current climate, where the tax payer is trying to keep roof over their heads, paying for another level of council shows that our current councillors have no thought about the tax payer, only their own highly paid jobs.
It makes you wonder if we need a borough council? It seems that they are trying to safeguard themselves. If there is a change in government thinking on councils, they have town/parish councils, they can go first. Therefore saving their own positions.
Also, is not the tax payer paying for two persons to do the same job? If the borough council was to go, I wonder how much would be saved? All of which could go on other services. Also there would be only one point of contact.
Andrew GRANT
Address supplied

Bigger picture behind fatality
SIR – Cyclists and pedestrians in St Bees should feel saddened by last week’s story of a blocked school entrance. Not because it comes six months after the sad incident that killed Alan Hodgson but because it does nothing to improve the overall safety of St Bees for cyclists and pedestrians.
The accident, after all, was caused by an event that must have happened several times a day over the past 50 years. It should raise bigger questions about safety for St Bees.
If we look at the big picture, what we have is a small bustling commuter village with several coincident and potentially hazardous events happening every day; the main street is the only viable access to the school, hourly trains, and horses and ponies frequently being ridden or led through the main streets. Put this together with narrow streets, parked cars, blind corners, and the fact that all roads into St Bees have steep slopes and you have a nightmare scenario for accidents.
If we’d done a risk assessment of bike accidents in and around St Bees a year ago, it could not have predicted the specific events that led to the tragic death. In fact, the odd nature of the accident diverts attention from other, more likely, accidents. High on the list would be a fatal accident between vehicle or pedestrian/cyclist and probably not in the town centre. I propose that St Bees (or whoever) should sponsor a real risk assessment as soon as possible and act on its findings. Here are two improvements that will mitigate the hazards immediately:
The school owns a large amount of land. How difficult would it be to devise an alternative route for access? The new scheme should aim to reduce traffic on the main road as much as possible
Create a bridle path up the St Bees valley that links to the existing path. This would allow all walkers and cyclists to get in and out of St Bees without using the main roads.
St Bees is rightly famous for its charms; the schools, the abbey, the beach and the home of the ‘coast-to-coast’. Let’s do something that will enhance these charms and keep us all safe at the same time.
Stewart MACKAY

Schools out after over 80 years
SIR – American Independence Day 2008 marked the closure of a valuable asset to the county’s armoury in its fight against ignorance when Harecroft Hall School held its final Speech Day on July 4, so ending an 83 year history of independent education in Gosforth.
Harecroft was opened in 1925 as a preparatory school for boys destined for entry to elite public schools and it continued to serve this narrow male community until 1965 when it diversified into educating girls and at the same time opened a nursery to serve the local community.
Further improvements in the last 25 years saw the establishment of a science block worthy of an opening visit in 1981 by the then Home Secretary, William Whitelaw MP, and recently as the school extended its curricula to admit GCSE pupils, an IT unit was built.
But now it is no more, as a variety of commercial and social pressures have forced its closure.
As an old boy of the school I feel I must make this appreciation of Harecroft, not just for my own sake but for all the other boys, girls and teachers who learned to love the Cumbria of mountains, lakes and sea while engaged in the journey of discovery that is education.
Notable former connections with Harecroft include Charles Wylie who was on the first successful expedition to climb Mt Everest in 1953, Tam Dalyell MP former ‘Father of the House’, and the concert pianist Eileen Joyce.
Whatever the future of the school and its picturesque grounds and sports field may be, its past is something West Cumbria can be proud of and remember with fondness.
Tim PENRICE
Pier Street, London

Young local lad is doing his best
SIR – What a palaver about our Labour MP Jamie Reed. I think Jack Cunningham was a hard act to follow. This young local lad is doing his best.
We need this nuclear facility at Sellafield. Where will the jobs be found in Cumbria if we do not support it?
I worked for Kangol Wear, at Cleator and Frizington factories. Frizington now a building site, and Cleator, a lovely old building that, in my opinion should have been put to good use as the new academy. Road in, road out and no traffic problems.
Are they sure that the site at Egremont is not undermined? What if they build here and then realise it is undermined? A lot of money will be wasted!
Grace SLOAN
Fell Dyke, Lamplugh

Victim gets my vote of support
SIR – With reference to your article “Judge declares racism rife on Hensingham estate” (Whitehaven News, July 3).
I believe I have met the lady mentioned, Mrs Lilia Korwin-Granford, when I was in hospital two years ago. She was a very kind lady who spoke to any patients who noticed she was there; and her few words each day did as much to cure me as the work of the doctors and nurses.
I personally would be delighted to have such a nice Christian lady as my next door neighbour.
Mavis GASKELL
Main Street,
Egremont

Political views are taken as red
SIR – If Alan Mossop had sent his letter (“Outrage over the British Question”) to Egremont Today it would have been published in full, in line with our policy to offer a right of reply to any views expressed in our paper.
Among its 28 pages Egremont Today includes a column by our MP, Jamie Reed, and one by our MEP, Brian Simpson. Brian often uses his space to comment on the achievements of local people rather than make any political comment at all. When he does make a controversial statement he is delighted if his comments stir a debate.
Apart from these columns very little of our space is devoted to political comment of any kind, because we need to put our pages at the disposal of people who want us to publish their stories. Our Notice Board provides contact details for all councillors, whatever their party. The Labour Party has never made any financial contribution to Egremont Today, and indeed we have never accepted subsidy from any source.
Force of demand has pushed Egremont Today from a four-page leaflet, circulation 700, to its present 28 pages, circulation 9,750, all hand delivered by volunteers, very few of whom are members of the Labour Party. It proudly carries its historic subtitle, Labour’s Voice in Egremont & District, as it has done every month since it was first published in June 1990, but to describe it as “a Labour Party propaganda freebie” simply flies in the face of public perception.
Single issue political activist Alan Mossop should try reading it.
Peter WATSON
Editor, Egremont Today
Greendykes, Egremont

EDITOR’S NOTE: Our recent report on Egremont Horse Show failed to mention that some of the photographs used had been submitted courtesy of Egremont Today. We are happy to clarify matters. 

* SIR – Alan Mossop wasn't the only person to pick up on that particular drivel that was written in Egremont Today by MEP Brian Simpson. It put the back up on many people.
I did think of sending a letter of complaint to Simpson but decided against it, based on the assumption that anyone who could make such a stupid remark is not exactly likely to listen to reason; instead I contacted Jamie Reed and told him that it was no wonder there was a rise in English nationalism when politicians can spout such verbal diarrhoea.
The English now feel like second class citizens in this country. A Scot is allowed to be proud, so is a Welshman, but if you say you’re English you’re looked on as a Nazi whose ancestors enslaved the world. Even if you get a questionnaire from the police, every nation has a tick box except the English. And then they wonder why people are starting to dig their heels in.
Clive MORGAN

Tales from the old Toy Shop
SIR – In the 1940s my grandparents Sarah and W I Coulter, my parents Cissie and James Sowerby (nee Coulter), along with my uncle, Samuel Coulter, his wife Winnie, and son Maurice, opened a toy shop at the front of our home in 19 New Street, opposite Phillip’s Warehouse.
It was known as W J Coulter and Sons, and made handmade toy forts, dolls houses, rabbit-shaped wheel barrows, lead soldiers, Plaster of Paris dolls, Jacks, marbles etc. These were all made in our cellars below.
However the last remaining photos have now gone, and after finding a school photo in The Whitehaven News, June 19, with my late mum (which neither my sister or I had ever seen) has given me hope that someone out there may have photos of old New Street in its hay day, with its shops and pubs and old houses by the dozen, many hidden from sight, up passages and archways, long gone.
So if anyone has a photograph of the toy shop, I would be grateful.
Celia DIXON
28 Homewood Road
Hensingham
Whitehaven CA28 8JH

Help us with our RL compendium
SIR – We are hoping the good people of West Cumbria can help us in our quest in Barrow. We are compiling a who’s who of Barrow Rugby League club, essentially a biography of every player to have worn a Barrow shirt and are searching for pictures of a number of West Cumbrians who tried their luck a bit further down the coast.
All are prior to World War II so we are looking for grand/great grandchildren of the players or anyone who may just have a picture of their relative/friends they can copy to us.
We would greatly appreciate any help anyone can give us as we would like this book to be as complete as possible when it is eventually published.
The players in question, their amateur clubs and the years they signed for Barrow are as follows:
John O'Neill (Dearham Wanderers 1936); Joseph Todhunter (Brookland Rovers 1931); W T McDowell (Harrington 1930); Matthew Denwood (1929), Thomas Garner (1924) and Thomas Briggs (1914) all Glasson Rangers; John Metcalfe (Broughton Moor 1910); John James Humphreys (Silloth RU 1910); George Ennis (Whitehaven RU 1910); J E Spedding (Egremont 1904); W Cameron (Seaton 1904);V Johnson (Whitehaven 1905).
Dave HUITSON
Flat A
21 Albany Road
Southsea PO5 2AB
Tel: 07592784746

Let’s stick to the nuclear facts
SIR – Jamie Reid’s simplistic suggestion on converting Sellafield’s plutonium stockpile into reactor fuel as a means of fighting climate change and securing energy supplies (Whitehaven News, July 17) is highly misleading and light years beyond the capabilities of Sellafield’s commercial plant as he should know only too well from his recent pre-MP days as a PR man for the site.
Some of the material in the stockpile, already classified as an asset of ‘zero value’, cannot be converted because of contamination from its original packaging. A further volume is likely to be widely shunned by potential customers because of its age and the prohibitive cost to them of having it cleaned up for re-use. Even if the full stockpile was available as claimed, Jamie’s projected timescale for its conversion and subsequent use in reactor is wildly inaccurate.
The Sellafield MOX plant, where the plutonium would be converted into mixed oxide fuel (MOX) for reactor use, has failed to produce more than 2 tonnes of MOX fuel per year since it opened in 2001, despite being designed to produce 120 tonnes annually.
Even in the unlikely event that the Sellafield MOX plant was to defy all current independent assessments and at some future point manage to produce some 30 tonnes per year, it would still take over 60 years to convert the stockpile – way too late to fuel his new-build reactors.
It seems to us that a third great challenge we face today is the amount of manic misinformation, such as Jamie’s claim, that wafts around Westminster and the corridors of power in West Cumbria. If we must have a nuclear renaissance forced upon us, let it at least be judged on the realities of life and the warts and all of Sellafield’s commercial operations and their prospects. For there is little merit in crowing about Sellafield’s skills, as your article does, when that particular attribute has been conspicuous by its absence on numerous well-documented occasions in recent and not so recent times.
Martin FORWOOD
Campaign Co-ordinator CORE
Broughton Mills
Broughton-in-Furness

Figuring out council finances
SIR –With regard to the article in last week’s Whitehaven News regarding the amount Copeland Council has paid for financial services, I wish to clarify figures.
The amount cited is the total that we have paid the staffing agency for finance management services, this is not the figure that any one individual has been paid.
Ian CURWEN
Senior Communications Officer
Copeland Borough Council

... and sorting out flower costs!
SIR – A big thank you to everyone who contributed to Egremont Parish Church’s recent successful Flower Festival. Very artistic work was displayed by all our primary schools and nurseries in the town (Bookwell School was omitted from the initial report).
The cost of flowers etc was not £2,000 as reported, much less, but we did raise over £2,000 for much needed work on the interior of the church.
Doris DOWNTON
Church Warden
Keats Drive
Egremont

Toasting success of coffee morning
SIR – A recent coffee morning held at Harbour View Lodge Care Home, Bransty, has been hailed a success. the staff at the home wanted to do something by way of thanks to St Begh’s Roman Catholic Church, for all their help and ongoing support.
The combined efforts of the parishioners of St Begh’s church and the staff of the Home raised a phenomenal £286.00.
Harbour View Lodge staff plan to use their share of the money to go towards entertainment costs for the residents of the home. Once again staff would like to offer their thanks to Father Matthews and his team.
Gillian McALLISTER
Home Manager
Harbour View Lodge Care Home