Letters

12 November 2009

In 2007 the Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Rugby said: "We are asking Rugby people if they believe that there should be a referendum, and whether they agree with us that Gordon Brown is morally bound to offer the people of the Country the referendum he promised them”. Just a few months ago he said: "Our call for a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty is serious and deserves to be heard more widely". From these quotes it is clear that he believes any party leader who promised a referendum and then reneged on that pledge is morally bankrupt and untrustworthy.
Given that he thinks these things he might want to consider his position as a member of a party led by David Cameron. In 2007 Mr Cameron gave a "cast iron" guarantee that he would hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Now he is refusing to do so. Given that no one under the age of 56, Mark Pawsey included, has had the chance to vote on our membership of the EU I feel that Mr Cameron's U-turn is treachery of the highest order. Mark Pawsey may only be a loyal footsoldier, easily forgotten by the Notting Hill set, but even he must feel incredibly stupid having said all of those things in the past only to be usurped by his leader.
With the shenanigans over Europe from all main parties it leaves only one viable proposition for many at the next General Election: to vote UKIP.
Paul Holdsworth
Amelia Close
Bulkington

The new giant road signs on and around the gyratory system are unsightly, ill placed and quite unnecessary. I wonder who the "key stakeholders" were, who had the priviledge of being consulted. The signs are yet another complete waste of public money, along with the absurd pedestrian crossing on Ashlawn Road and the new bus stop signs that have appeared, some right in the middle of our already inadequate cycle lanes, on Dunchurch Road and elsewhere.
A P Conway
via email

Regarding the ‘dangerous’ A45. I tend to agree with your recent correspondent regarding the fact that reducing the speed allowed on the road to 50mph has actually made it more dangerous. There is much more overtaking on the road than there was before the limit was lowered from 60mph which is probably the main cause of this. Building an abattoir along the road will almost certainly not help either. However, the main reason for the very poor record of accidents on this road is actually the very poor road markings that existed around the end of the dual carriageway travelling from the Dunchurch/M45 end towards Daventry, where it became a single carraigeway – a scene of many fatal accidents over many years, resulting in the warning signs now present on the road at that point!
Up until the improvement of the lines and catseyes which happened a year or so ago as you travelled at night along that stretch of road you left the dual carriageway and there was a total void of any markings or catseyes which even for people who knew the road left them disoriented at that point. The people who were killed at that point were mainly as a result of that bad management by the highway authority.
Geoff Crowther
Onley Park
Willoughby

I would like to respond to a letter that was in the Observer on October 22 as I have only just seen a copy of it hence this letter is a few weeks after the initial letter.
I would like to say how disgusted I was to read the letter in the Observer complaining about how dangerous the A45 is due to the speed limit being reduced. Does this person realise the amount of accidents there have been on that stretch of the road let alone the deaths that have occurred as a result of the accidents? I find that this person who states that maybe other road users should drive at 40mph so that they can be overtaken should not be responsible for driving a car as they are obviously a dangerous driver. What will they do if the proposed abattoir gets the go ahead as the A45 will be even more dangerous as there will be an extra ghost lane on that stretch of the road with lorries turning in and out of the entrance. Will this driver just overtake here as well and put other safe road users at risk or even the children from Onley Park who have to cross the road to catch the bus has this person got no regard for the safety of these children.
Tanya Hadley
Lawford Bridge Close
Rugby

I’d like to thank Mark Pawsey for taking the time to reply to my letter on residential care funding. There are points of agreement between us.
For example, I argued that only a minority of pensioners will be able to afford the up-front cash fees proposed by the Tories. The statistics volunteered by Mr Pawsey bear this out. He says that under half of pensioner couples and only a third of single pensioners have sufficient savings to meet the proposed £8,000 per head levy. That is precisely why I object to the Tory plan!
Beyond that area of agreement, I was disappointed that Mr Pawsey chose not to engage with either of the substantive criticisms I raised. The key point is this. If, as the Tories claim, their “home protection plan” is commercially viable, then why hasn’t it been offered on the market by commercial insurers already?
My answer to this conundrum is that the Tory plan isn’t commercially viable. There’s no such thing as a free lunch, and I believe the Tory plan would result in the general taxpayer subsidising the few who can afford to buy into the scheme. It will be another case of a tax on the many for the benefit of the relatively wealthy few.
Dr Ben Ferrett
Borough Councillor (Labour) for Brownsover South ward

Can I thank Mark Pawsey for clearing up the confusion from his letter regarding the Conservative Insurance based scheme that they will use to cover residential care costs.
As Mark will know for many years the drive has been to maintain the independence of individuals in there own homes for as long as possible not allowing them to go into residential care, that is why we need a programme of increasing “Extracare” housing within the Rugby area along with “Telecare” and the community support services to help achieve this to happen. Mark will be aware of the difference between residential ad nursing care and the specialist services that are in demand especially for dementia. We all agree that we have an aging population and that we are living longer and it is right to ask the question how will we pay for this as a society .The problem with an insurance-based scheme first how many people will take it up?
Secondly the devil will be in the detail we all have tales to tell regarding those claims not allowed all because it does not meet the criteria. Experience tells me that we will see the same thing happen with such a scheme as the Conservatives are proposing. We will also see the residential care home industry seek to increase charges they are already looking to do this now. So when it comes to make that claim against the insurance will the criteria set really see free payment? and once in a home will all the costs be covered or will we still see as we do now those extra costs for clothes, toiletries all those extras that add up.
The issue of care will not go away - we do need a Royal Commission that will seek to bring out the long lasting solutions needed building on such schemes as Extracare, Telecare.
We also need to invest more in care workers at all levels. We do not want the sound bite from a party conference in order just to get votes. I will fight for this constituency, I will also fight for the extra funding that will be needed.
So come on Mark stop trotting out the party line and join me in campaigning for, better care for all.
Jerry Roodhouse PPC Liberal Democrats

Please could you print this letter to let everyone know how well we did in raising funds for animal charities locally and nationwide with our bazaar. We held it on Saturday 31st October from 2pm-4pm at St Peter's and St John's Church Hall along the Clifton Road in Rugby. We raised £368.47 this year which will help 15 animal charities. We wish to thank everyone who helped us in every way to raise this amount which is the best total in our 10 years of fund raising. We would personally like to thank our helpers for their time, people who came to our bazaar on the day, two ladies from the theatre make-up team who came to our rescue at very short notice, Eileen for the letter she did which helped get more people there on the day, Tebbs for a raffle donation, Gloria for her support all year round, Mr and Mrs Pow for the wonderful cakes and help on the day and lastly Paul the manger of Pronta Print in Rugby for his kind and generous support. We thank the hall managers for helping us to get the hall at the hire cost we expected it at. We are not happy though with the Church Council of the Church of St Peter's and St John's putting an increase on hall hire and a charge for the kitchen. We feel they will lose bookings for hall hire especially with no charity hall hire rate. We will be going elsewhere next year where we will hopefully do well if not better.
Julie and Jeff Hetherington
Rokeby Street
Rugby

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