LETTERS: 'Fix our potholes before spending cash on HS2'

Mother’s Day can be hard for some

With Mother’s Day coming up later this month we have, quite rightly, a wonderful opportunity to celebrate; to give thanks to - and for - those who have mothered us.

However, for anyone who has lost a child, Mother’s Day can be one of the most painful times of the year.

Footprints is a special service of remembrance that we hold each year, during the week before the Mother’s Day weekend, for anyone who has lost a child during pregnancy or at any age or stage of life or who has been affected by such a loss, whether parent, grandparent, teacher, friend or family member.

This year Footprints will take place on Friday 13th March at 7.30pm at Holy Trinity Church, Church Path, Lane End, High Wycombe, HP14 3HD.

Footprints will offer space to remember our child or children and the opportunity to light a candle in their memory.

There will be music, readings and prayers included as part of our time of remembering. Refreshments will be served after the service.

During the service, each person will be given a paper dove and invited to write the name of their child, or simply ‘known to God’, on the dove’s wing.

Each of the doves will be gathered up, as a flock of remembrance, to form an installation in the church.

Since Footprints began six years ago we have had the privilege of walking beside grieving families: some come having lost a child very recently; some come because they have lost a baby 50 years ago; some are teachers come to remember a pupil who has died; some are members of the emergency services who have come to remember lost children.

All are warmly welcome.

If you would like more information about Footprints please contact Rev Sue Morton suemorton131@gmail.com

Rev Sue Morton

Mr Baker declined our invite

Last month Wycombe MP Steve Baker used your pages to state that he regretted the present divisions in the country and acknowledged the “genuine sorrow” of many of his constituents at the UK’s departure from the EU.

He went on to write that leavers now “have a duty to be magnanimous and, together, we need to create a future we can all be proud of”.

These were fine words and were echoed in Mr Baker’s recent letter of resignation as chair of the ERG group of anti-European MPs.

In the same spirit I invited Mr Baker to set out his plans and discuss ways forward at a meeting of Pulse of Europe, a friendly, non-party-political group of constituents which had been making the case for staying in the EU for nearly four years.

Despite many invitations Mr Baker had hitherto refused to meet us, but given his public statement in the BFP we thought this would be a good time. Here is what Mr Baker replied - some days after our meeting had taken place:

“I am not willing to help [sic] your political campaign in opposition to my position and the policy on which I was elected. We both hold sincere views on the UK’s membership of the EU but these are incompatible [sic]. I know what I believe and I am confident I understand the views of your members. [Mr Baker does not: he has never met us!]

“I will not be attending meetings organised by the Pulse of Europe or similar meetings. Please do not ask me again.”

I suggest that all Mr Baker’s constituents, whatever their political affiliation and views about Brexit, ask whether their MP is quite as sincere as he would like us to think, and whether he should continue to trouble this newspaper and other media with promises he appears to have no intention of keeping.

Peter Roberts, Loudwater

Budget is a bad deal for Wycombe

Cllr Robin Stuchbury’s (Labour District Councillor Buckingham) defence of the Wycombe Labour Party’s decision to vote in favour of the Conservative budget for the new Buckinghamshire Council is intriguing (BFP letters, March 6).

As has been widely reported, this budget set out a disproportionate and unfair 5.45% increase in Council Tax for Wycombe residents, something which as the Wycombe Independents we simply could not support.

Cllr Stuchbury concedes that there are still “numerous questions” about the new authorities spending plans and yet he still saw fit to support it.

He identifies some positives – which is not surprising. There is always some common ground to be found across the council chamber and of course we all support better and more affordable housing, for example.

He argues that the budget is a “transition arrangement” but in doing so is complicit in supporting the shambolic and divided approach that Conservative politicians across Buckinghamshire have handled the move to a unitary council.

This change has been on the cards for years and yet there has been no effort to cooperate in aligning the separate council budgets and council tax rates prior. Instead we’ve seen the different Conservative councils squabbling and taking legal action against each other in an attempt to protect their fiefdoms and “jobs for the boys”.

Disorganised and divided also sums up Cllr Stuchbury’s own party. At this highly significant meeting to scrutinise and debate the new Buckinghamshire Council’s first budget of £1.2 billion only one of seven Wycombe Labour councillors even bothered to turn up.

The one that did arrived late and left early. It was apparent that there was no coordinated response and our Wycombe Labour councillor simply followed the lead of Cllr Stuchbury and supported the budget, despite it being an incredibly bad deal for Wycombe.

Even some Wycombe Conservatives voted against or abstained in protest.

It is apparent that Wycombe Labour committed a massive faux pas, by neither turning up to the meeting, sending apologies or having any intention of properly scrutinising and challenging this budget. Once again they have shown themselves to have no substance and demonstrated that they can’t be trusted to be a strong voice for Wycombe.

Cllrs Matt Knight and ️Julia Wassell, Wycombe Independents

2016 promises have been broken

I WENT to Emmy van Deurzen’s talk called “Where do I belong?” at Kingston University on the 22nd of January.

Emmy said that some of the people from the rest of Europe, who have made their homes, lives and families in this country, are now blaming themselves, thinking: “I was stupid. I should never have believed the English when they said I was welcome in their country”.

It is not the same story all over. People from the rest of Europe are saying that they do feel supported in Scotland. I put a copy of P.D. Somerville’s letter in BFP (February 21) in an Internet forum used by people in the UK from the rest of Europe.

It got a range of reactions: annoyance, sadness, amusement and even pity. Pity for P.D. Somerville’s “inability to imagine the motivations of others” and lack of empathy.

Some forum users said they had been in the UK before the Euro currency or Schengen even existed. Others said it never even crossed their mind to consider whether or not the UK was in the Euro currency. One said she came to the UK because “I fell in love and was fed up with living in a different country to my boyfriend”.

Yesterday I met a German woman who I will call Ella. She doesn’t have her original birth certificate because it was destroyed by Allied bombing of Frankfurt during the war. Instead she has a copy with a stamp of authenticity.

Ella married a British man in Germany in 1969 and came to live with him here, getting a 1969 British stamp in her passport saying “Exempt from registration with the police”. That was when the UK was a candidate country to join the European Economic Community and the European Atomic Energy Community, after first applying to join in 1961.

Ella has had to apply under the Windrush scheme. She was “furious” when she was told to go to Croydon to have her photo and fingerprints taken.

Now she has got a UK residence card but there is an error on it. Her German passport says correctly Ella was born in “Frankfurt Am Main” but her UK card says “Frankfurt Am Mai”. She sent the card back to the UK authority who could not fix the mistake, saying: “sorry, we’ve only got room for 16 characters”.

Meanwhile, ‘settled status’ applicants are being made to apply to an online only scheme where, unlike Ella, they are given nothing that they can put on the table. All this is contrary to promises made before the 2016 referendum that they would be given “automatic rights”.

Phil Jones, European Movement UK

Fix potholes before spending on HS2

THE lane that I live in in the prosperous Hughenden Valley is always peppered with ankle wrenching potholes.

Once every few years a man comes from Kent and shovels some gravel, moistened with bitumen, into some of the holes, seemingly chosen at random.

Within two weeks the fillings have been washed away. I notice that some of the current holes, but only those measuring more than one meter in length, have been marked for attention. at some time later this year.

Can the country really afford such profligacy on top of the HS2 project?

Alan Peacegood, Hughenden Valley

Our pavements are terrible

I’VE had various meetings with Transport for Bucks about some of the terrible state of pavements particularly in our local Ward.

In the Booker & Cressex Ward there are two in particular that are a major cause for concern. One is near the Turnpike between house number 204 and the Bus Shelter.

The other is just past Limmer Lane travelling towards the motorway.

The problem with these is that the surface of the pavement is lower than the surrounding verge, coupled with the sheer volume of rain that we have experienced lately has led to an awful lot of surface water on the pavement and an accumulation of silt.

Of course this is nothing like the problems faced by residents in Yorkshire, the Midlands and South Wales recently.

During the meetings it was very apparent that there are many problems in the Wycombe District Area with pavements and obviously there are a very large number of potholes and I’ve just recently seen a sign on the Lane End Road stating, ‘Road Surface Failed’ - doubtless due to the sheer volume of rain that we have experienced recently.

Of course, a few years ago, that phrase would never have been heard of. One has to look at the big picture and this is just one of many problems that Transport For Bucks has got. They have stated that when the weather improves and there is no further risk of large volumes of rainfall as we have had lately, the long-term solution can be applied to the problem of these pavements.

Cllr Brian Pearce, Booker and Cressex ward, Wycombe District Council

Time to grow those vegetables

Currently there are allotment plots available in Marlow at Foxes Piece and Hanging Hill Allotment sites. With spring approaching this is an ideal time to get started, and by Summer fruit and vegetables will be ready to crop and take home.

Any Marlow residents ready to tackle this challenge and reap the benefits, please contact Marlow Town Council on 01628 484024 or email marlowallotmentassociation@gmail.com and the Secretary of the Allotments Association will be happy to answer any questions.

Sylvia Miller, address withheld

Chesham Home Guard in WW2

AS WELL as 2020 being the 75th Anniversary of VE Day, it is also the 80th Anniversary of the formation of the Home Guard – brought into being by a radio broadcast made by Anthony Eden on 14th May 1940.

To commemorate this occasion, two local history enthusiasts – Eleanor Phillips and Keith Fletcher – have published a 60 page book called “Don’t Shoot the Messenger!” which takes an affectionate look at the Chesham Home Guard during World War 2.

The book is based mainly on the wartime scrapbooks and other memorabilia which were put together by Lt. Col. A. Melville, the Commander of the Chesham Home Guard and charts the progress of the Home Guard in Chesham throughout the war years.

Privately published, the book is obtainable for £10 plus p&p from either the online shop of Chesham Museum or on e-Bay. All profits made from the sales will be donated to charity.

Eleanor Phillips, address withheld