A view on Brexit

Brexit.

Love it or hate it, it’s clearly not going well.

I have a theory about that.

It’s because it’s not the right answer, heck, it’s not even the right question!

So, let’s go back to 2016 to the question that asked:

Do you wish to remain or do you wish to leave?

One option, Remain, is the status quo. It’s well established, well understood, it works like a well-oiled machine, it keeps the lights on, and mostly does what it should, but it doesn’t do anything exciting. Same old same old. There are problems for sure, it’s not perfect but it’s functional. And it’s dull. It’s as thrilling as traffic management, and the small print on the Apple contract.

The other option is full of hope. It calls for a glorious fight for freedom, taking back control from some evil overlord leading to a marvellous sunlit future for our newly sovereign nation.

It’s uplifting, but short on detail. And asks more questions than it answers…

Freedom from what?

Control of what?

Sovereignty?

How will it work afterwards?

What changes?

What stays the same?

But these are not the right questions..

…perhaps these are better:

How will we manage imports and exports?

How will we licence medicines?

How will we ensure the supply chains for food, fuel, medicines, even the chemicals to purify our water?

How will we ensure manufacturing components get to our factories on time?

How will we ensure fresh produce can be exported before rotting in the lorries?

How will we ensure the humane transport of livestock when there are 20 miles of tailbacks at Dover?

Who benefits from Brexit? Who profits?

No, these are also the wrong questions. Important to think about, but still wrong.

The right questions are needed now more than ever, to start healing the divide in the nation:-

What is broken in YOUR life?

What doesn’t work? What causes you difficulty?

Healthcare – doctors appointments, hospital waiting time, overworked and underpaid nurses and doctors?

Housing – rents too high, houses too small, rip off landlords and houses not fit for habitation, the cost of buying a house?

Education – not enough support from the early days, expensive childcare, class sizes too big, can’t get a place in a good school, underfunding, overworked and stressed teachers, reducing subjects offered, limited or expensive extra curricula activities, university fees?

Work – zero hours contracts, gig economy, no security, no prospects for promotion, no jobs in my area, poverty wages?

Social security – universal credit, financial support for the disabled, care for the elderly, protection for vulnerable children, homelessness, food bank use?

Mental health – lack of mental healthcare provision, stigma, causes being agnored, and simple solutions undelivered due to no funding?

Transport – not enough bus routes, train line to my town closed years ago, trains unreliable and expensive?

Etc. Etc. Etc.

Britain is in a desperate place right now and that’s because parliament is beavering away at the wrong solution to utterly the wrong question.

We need a huge national conversation to ask the right questions.

The country needs a damn good listening to!

Online surveys, town hall meetings with MPs, maybe a survey sent to every person with a national insurance number.

Every person gets the chance to tell of their personal experience.

Then the answers can be categorised into one of only 3 options:

problems caused by UK governance

Problems caused by EU governance

Fake problems caused by misunderstanding, misinformation, or lies by the media, lobbyists or politicians.

Once we understand the root cause of these problems then we will see whether they are caused by UK governance or EU governance. And it will be clear whether we should leave or remain.

Then we work with experts to find solutions and fix them.

That’s all very simple… isn’t it!?

No, it’s not. It’s really complex.

But it’s important to understand the problem you are trying to fix, and the implications and costs of the solution.

To do otherwise leads to wasted time, wasted money and the dawning realisation that no matter how hard you work on it… it doesn’t fix the root cause.

And people will be worse off after it.

We don’t need Brexit.

We need a root cause analysis of the problems that caused people to vote for Brexit.

The government has said Brexit will damage every region and every sector of the economy.

In short, everyone will be worse off. That’s certainly not what was promised.

So, let’s stop Brexit, and start asking the right questions, and start healing the divide in our beleaguered nation

Clare Waters, Wokingham

Sign the petition

A number of residents have contacted us over the past few days to say that they had difficulties in accessing or signing our petition against too many houses being proposed for our area (as referenced in last week’s Wokingham Paper).

The reason this happened is because the Government Website could not cope with the number of people trying to sign the Revoke Article 50 Petition at the time.

Can I ask that anyone who was unsuccessful, or who would like to sign to now try again. All you need to do is to google or similar type in Petition.parliament.uk/petitions/237564 and then press search.

The time has come to rebalance and re-level the playing field with regard to the way developers have been destroying the character and environment of our area which has led to all the gridlock many of you have experienced these past couple of years.

The destruction of Hedgerows and the cutting down of some 500 trees, as has happened recently, is we feel wanton abuse of the current system and has to stop and stop now!

We have to fight now, because if we do not it will be too late. The Government needs to be made aware of the views of the residents in this area.

As we say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

All means of getting this message to the Government and those in a position to influence this situation should be supported.

Cllr Lindsay Ferris, Leader of the Democrats and Leader of the Opposition on Wokingham Borough Council

Home numbers targets

Whilst I welcome WBC leader Cllr Julian McGhee-Sumner’s speech stating that “enough is enough” in respect of the government’s increasingly high targets for the number of homes that have to be built in the borough one has to question his sincerity. It could of course be purely coincidental that his seat is up for grabs in May.

It is less than a year since former council leader David Lee lost his seat in a neighbouring ward. Clearly Cllr McGhee-Sumner wants to avoid a repeat, and this could explain his sudden change of direction having previously supported the party line as deputy leader.

A similar tactic was used at the Evendons ward by-election in February. The Wokingham Conservative Voice published at the time included a claim that “there has been success in rejecting the site next to St Anne’s Manor” yet the WBC website still shows that planning application as in progress.

I queried this with my two Conservative ward councillors and unsurprisingly they could not substantiate the claim that the Tory-led council had done anything to stop this in-fill application that will help to plug the gap between Wokingham and Bracknell.

Even more amazing is the fact that Cllr Mirfin who is currently championing building yet more homes on our former town centre park, Elms Field, has posted details of his boss’ speech on social media. This is the biggest U-turn since Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus.

Peter Humphreys, Wokingham

Thank you, Zappas

I would like to say a big thank you to the staff at Zappas on Peach Street in Wokingham, especially to Sophie and Katy.

I am an elderly lady and I was involved in a car accident on Tuesday, March 19 outside Zappas.

The young staff came rushing out to see what they could do to help and took me into their shop, gave me a cup of tea, calmed me down and called my daughter.

It is often said nowadays that the young are thoughtless and uncaring, but the attention I received from these young girls was heart-warming. I know my granddaughters would be the same.

My grateful thanks again.

Name and address supplied

Collapse of Dawnus

At last week’s Council meeting, the Conservative Leader made a statement about the collapse into administration of the councils building contractor for Peach Place in Wokingham Town Centre.

The nearly £14m project was already at least six months behind schedule and now might not be fully open until Christmas 2019. There will also be considerable extra cost for the council and therefore you the council tax payer. These extra costs could get towards £1,000,000.

Lib Dems are very supportive of Council officers who are running the project. They reacted very quickly when they realised that there was a possible problem early this year and put in place measures to make sure work is started again as soon as is practically possible.

However, we would like to know when the Council was aware there was a possible financial problem with the contractor.

Having looked at the accounts of the contractor, Dawnus Ltd. which are available from Companies House. It is quite apparent that there were issues at the end of 2017. Not long after the council awarded the contract to Dawnus Ltd.

Does the council have robust procedures in place to look at the Finances of contractors and sub-contractors to ensure they are financially stable before they start work for the council and whilst they are actually doing work for us.

Is this more evidence of the Conservatives not being as financially competent as they like us to think they are?

Cllr Clive Jones, Liberal Democrat member for Hawkedon ward and Deputy Leader of the Lib Dem group on Wokingham Borough Council

 

The unwelcome, indeed for its employees, painful news that Wokingham Borough Council contractor Dawnus has been placed into administration will mean the setting back of an already well-behind scheduled finish date for the Peach Place element of regeneration.

This will create further disruption and likely additional costs.

The question has to be asked, exactly what and how extensive were the steps taken by the council to establish the financial status of Dawnus prior to the contract being awarded?

Following close on the heels of criticisms of the Market Place redevelopment, many as the result of denied inadequate planning, now entailing additional remedial work relating in particular to the identification of on street parking, which, as with Peach Place, will add, in this instance, avoidable cost.

As Oscar Wilde would have possibly put it, to make one mess of things maybe regarded as misfortune. To make several looks like incompetence. Makes you wonder just what does go on behind the secretively closed Shute End Towers doors.

Moving on.

At the Woodcray Meadows Save Our Oaks protest (The Wokingham Paper, March 14), borough council leader – acting in his capacity as ward member – Cllr Julian McGhee-Sumner declared, “We’ve had a lot of development in Wokingham. I think there needs to be a pause now to look at what we’re doing.”

Well said sir.

Now all you have to do is persuade fellow councillors to adopt your enlightened way of thinking.

And to close … So, Wokingham is to become Berkshire’s answer to Hollywood. Best get the wig dry cleaned and lipped touch up then!

J W Blaney, Wokingham

 

Successful town centre

Wokingham Borough Council have borrowed nearly £150m to spend on the regeneration of Wokingham’s Town Centre. This is an awful lot of money and the biggest project undertaken by this Council.

Having borrowed so much money for this project it is only right that the Council does everything it can to make the project a success. For it to be successful we need the Town Centre retailers to be varied and busy. We do not want another clone town and we do not expect to be Bracknell or Reading.

The council made life very difficult for our retailers last year. There were substantial delays in the work around the market place which effectively meant the Town centre was closed for business for many months including the vital Christmas trading period.

Along with my Liberal Democrat colleagues on the Borough Council, we visited many Town centre retailers to see what the council could do to help them. It became was very clear that we needed to do more to encourage residents to visit the Town Centre again.

At the recent budget meeting, the Liberal Democrats proposed that the council give two hours free parking on a Saturday from the summer until the spring of 2020. We have to wait until the summer because there will be new car park payment machines then that will be able to cope with two hours free parking, but we hoped that it would boost trade and help the town recover.

Our plan was easily affordable and was checked by senior officers at the council.

Sadly, Conservative and Labour councillors refused to support the Liberal Democrats proposals.  When these councillors next tell you they are doing all they can to make the Town centre project a success, ask them what exactly they have done to help and why they would not support free parking for two hours?

Cllr Imogen Shepherd-Dubey, Liberal Democrat councillor for Emmbrook ward, Wokingham Borough Council

Climate change misleads

The Wokingham Paper is a much more civilized place than the Wild West Web.  When I publish my views on climate change on a blog, the response often includes death threats.  Here, I get a polite letter from Tony Peters (letters, March 21).

Perhaps I worded my previous letter (March 14) badly.  It was not my intention to claim that this is all about money.  My main concern is that the public are being misled.  There is one monopoly source of information about climate change – the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – and dissident scientists find it difficult to get their views aired.

For people who want to hear an alternative view, I recommend Patrick Moore’s video “Why it’s not CO2”, which can be found on YouTube.

Patrick Moore (Canadian) was a founder member of Greenpeace but Greenpeace is now trying to distance itself from him.  People who don’t want to hear an alternative view can just ignore this.

I was amused to find this question on the fact-checking website Snopes: “Is it true that 30,000 scientists have signed a petition arguing that there is no convincing scientific evidence for anthropogenic climate change“.

The reply from Snopes was “Mostly False”.

In fact, it is true.  It is called the Oregon Petition and, at the last count, it had been signed by 31,487 scientists.

I think people should be allowed to hear both sides of the story.

Rex Hora, Earley

I love democracy

I love the way parliament can democratically vote on the same deal times in a few weeks, but the country would be undemocratic if we voted on the same thing nearly 3 years later, with far more information, and after the first one has been shown to have had illegal activity.

I love how parliament is democratically enforcing a relatively small majority in a non-binding, advisory referendum to push for Brexit under any circumstances, where the result would have been declared invalid due to fraud if the referendum had actually been a binding referendum which would have given MPs the mandate to leave at any cost.

I love the hypocrisy of it, the refusal to listen to the people, the refusal to listen to experts, the wilful going back on agreed negotiations on the international stage, the reputation we are building as a country, the hostile, toxic, and divisive feel of our society in the last few years.

I love how my multi-generationally British friends are being abusively told to “go back to where they came from” because their skin is more coffee coloured than mine. I love how our society seems to be becoming one of tolerance – in the media and systemically, tolerant of racism, tribalism, abuse, and violence against people who are in any way different. I love how Brexit opened the door to an apparent acceptance of that.

I love how my friends, born in Europe, but living, working, marrying, paying taxes, building families and businesses in the UK for decades are feeling they need to emigrate to a country that they haven’t lived in since youth, with their British families and British businesses, because they don’t feel welcome or safe here.

Sally Gurney, Wokingham

Stop the vandalism

I refer to my letter, ‘Stop the vandalism’, to the Wokingham Paper’s ‘Special Report – ‘We are taking action on anti-social behaviour across  Wokingham’ – both 30th January, and to your copious coverage of all the vandalism in Wokingham since then.

The latest outrage was discovered on Friday 15th March – when Wokingham Town Council telephoned to ask whether I knew about the graffiti on the side wall of the crisis house.

I usually check all the windows, but I hadn’t noticed the obscene graffiti on the wall. Fortunately, the Town Council had, and had informed the Borough Council. Special chemicals are required to remove graffiti, and the Borough Council provides this service – more work, and trouble, for them, and more tax-payers money down the drain! What Wokingham needs is a Police Station, and more Police Officers patrolling the streets.

In the absence of extra funding for this, the Police Force should recruit more Special Constables. These excellent volunteers cost very little money. They have limited powers, but are useful in keeping an eye out for anti-social behaviour, and, most important, by their very presence, nipping such behaviour in the bud!

Pam Jenkinson, The Wokingham Crisis House

Car park horror

I am a resident of Sale Garden Cottages which is a council sheltered scheme consisting of 31 bungalows Very close to the Denmark Street car park. To read in your paper of the council’s proposal [Editor notes: it is not a council proposal, but a developer-led idea] to build 80 new homes practically on top of us has horrified me and other tenants especially where our homes are close to the car park as we had no warning of this plan.

I have read the letters of readers regarding the loss of car parking which I totally agree with. It is untrue to state it is not utilised well as my kitchen window overlooks the car park and it is normally full including weekend evenings as I assume people come into the town to eat or socialise. Only on Christmas Day is it almost empty.

My concern is that building will involve tremendous noise and dust over a long period of time. We will lose some daylight and be unable to sit outside during the summer. No doubt there will be additional vehicles once built probably about 100-150 which will add to the pollution and traffic queues which are already causing huge problems for drivers. I have been advised that people are already having problems with parking at the multi-storey car park also that the new hotel will not have parking places?

As we are pensioners some of whom have health or mobility problems, we were expecting to enjoy some peace and quiet and I for one feel very badly let down by the Council. The planning seems to be in chaos and who will want to come to a place without adequate facilities.

Name and address supplied

Air gun attacks

As the UK’s largest cat welfare charity, Cats Protection is always horrified to learn of cases where cats have been injured or killed after being shot with an air gun.

Sadly, we regularly receive reports of horrific cases across England and Wales where cats have suffered agonising injuries – often fatal – as a result of the indiscriminate use of air guns. Cats that survive frequently sustain life-changing injuries from air gun attacks, such as limb amputation or loss of an eye. Furthermore, a 2016 Cats Protection survey of vets found that 46% of reported incidents result in fatalities.

Many of your readers may be shocked to learn that air guns are unlicensed in England and Wales, meaning that they can be legally owned by anyone over the age of 18. This is in contrast with Scotland and Northern Ireland, which both have sensible, modern laws in place to regulate who can own an air gun. It can therefore be no coincidence that over 90% of the air gun attacks on cats reported in the press in the UK are in England and Wales.

Cats Protection is determined to change this, and our petition calling on the Government to introduce the licensing of air guns in England and Wales has gathered over 110,000 signatures. The Government launched a review into air weapons legislation in October 2017, including a consultation which concluded on 6 February 2018, but have still not reported their next steps.

In the meantime, your readers can help by signing our petition at www.cats.org.uk/airgunspetition

We’d also ask anyone with any information about shooting incidents to report them to either the police, RSPCA or RSPCA Cymru in Wales.

Jacqui Cuff, Head of Advocacy & Government Relations

Organ donor changes

Your readers may have seen in the news that the organ donation procedure in England is changing. The introduction of Max and Keira’s Law will provide hope for the 57 people in Berkshire1 currently waiting for a heart, kidney or other organ transplant. However, evidence tells us more work will need to be done; now the Government must invest in resources to help the law change become a success.

Families will still play a role in deciding what happens to their loved one’s organs, so encouraging people to make their wishes known is essential. More specialist nurses are also needed as the presence of specialist organ donation nurses dramatically improves consent rates in the UK. If a specialist donation nurse is present to discuss organ donation, families are around three times more likely to consent to their loved one’s organs being donated.

It is fantastic this law has been passed, but now we must have a national conversation about organ donation. That is why we’re asking your readers to talk about how they feel about organ donation with their friends and family. Knowing your loved ones organ donation wishes should be as commonplace as knowing their birthday.

Simon Gillespie, Chief Executive of The British Heart Foundation

Paul Bristow, Interim Chief Executive of Kidney Care UK

Let’s hear it for Mum

For many mums, Mother’s Day is a lovely occasion where they are told how special they are by their family and enjoy being a little spoilt.

Not every mum enjoys this luxury on Mother’s Day though. At Rainbow Trust Children’s Charity we know that for mothers caring for a seriously ill child, Mother’s Day can be a difficult reminder that another year has passed and their child might not get better.

Our Family Support Workers help over 2,500 families to cope with the immense pressure of looking after a life threatened child and this Mother’s Day will be no exception.

To help celebrate all fantastic mums, Rainbow Trust is asking the public to nominate a mother they know who deserves a beautiful bouquet of flowers this Mother’s Day. It doesn’t have to be your own mother, it might be a friend, relation or acquaintance who really deserves to know how fantastic you think they are.

To enter, simply follow Rainbow Trust on Facebook, like the ‘win a Mother’s Day bouquet’ post and tag a mum you think deserves to win. The winner will be notified on Monday 1 April.

Good Luck!

Kate Phelps, Digital Marketing Manager, Rainbow Trust Children’s Charity, Cassini Court, Randalls Way,  Leatherhead, Surrey KT22 7TW