Excessive

WITHOUT informing the local residents in the Nithsdale Road area and without applying to the planning department for change of use, Tudor Lodge Surgery in Nithsdale Road intends to open a seven day a week, early to late retail shop and pharmacy in what is purely a residential area.

It will open Monday to Saturday 7am to 10.30pm and on Sunday from 10am-5pm.

The doctors do not intend to change or extend their existing surgery hours and will still close over the weekend – only the retail unit opens these excessive hours.

This will be a retail premises and by trying to bypass the planning regulations saying the retail shop is ancillary to the existing use of the surgery, no-one needs, in theory, to be made aware of this change.

The surgery borders a conservation area and once a retail outlet is allowed who is to say what other shops will follow?

Once opened, the shop and pharmacy must by law be open to everyone, not just their existing patients, and be open for a minimum of 100 hours a week. An already crowded residential street with little or no parking will now have additional traffic trying to park from early morning to late at night seven days a week, because there in theory is no change of use, no additional parking needs to be supplied.

The surgery has not applied for permission to extend its premises, therefore existing waiting rooms and consultation rooms used by doctors, trainee doctors and nurses must be sacrificed for this shop and pharmacy.

How will your medical services be affected?

The new shop and pharmacy must supply registered drug addicts with their heroin substitute and exchange their used needles and syringes. Does the neighbourhood really need this at 7.30am and to carry on until 10.30pm and all over the weekend?

The doctors may be acting in your interest to offer new services or they could be acting out of financially motivation with no regard to the local population – you decide.

Yes, if opened this retail outlet will affect my business but it is the secretive manner and the fall-out on a quiet residential area of Weston which I am more annoyed about.

TONY SHAW

Shaws Pharmacy, Moorland Road, Weston

Paper rubbish lorry

WITH reference to the subject of litter in readers’ letters of last week; it is not just the uncaring motorist who is responsible for the mess which lines the A370.

Some days ago, on the M5 between Weston and Clevedon, I was in a car travelling behind a large four-sided truck/lorry which was obviously full of paper rubbish of all kinds.

For a number of miles this vehicle shed great quantities of paper, blown out by the wind.

The litter flew about in the air in all directions to then land at the side of the road.

I would have thought that by the time this vehicle had arrived at its destination, at least one 10th of its load was left lying along the motorway.

I recorded its registration number, thinking it should be reported to the police - but then, what could be done?

H HARVEY

Ashford Drive, Weston

Magnet for litter

IN REPLY to Hilary English (Dumped Rubbish March 21 edition) she is not alone.

I too have noticed just how bad the problems of litter have become.

There is hardly a street in the area that is not plagued by this problem.

Must lay-bys seem to be a magnet for litter and fly tipping?

Particularly bad roads seem to be the A370 from the motorway roundabout to Flax Bourton, the motorway slip roads, the road from Brockley crossroads to the A38 and the dual carriageway from Morrisons into Weston.

I suspect the council hopes that residents will keep their own streets tidy and leave it at that.

MRS N A MATTHEWS

Falcon Crescent, Weston

Having to slalom

GIVEN the state of the economy and programmes on TV on a daily basis showing people in various parts of the world suffering far worse than us, I believe that we should show a far more positive attitude to our council charging us for services which it does not deliver.

Rather than moan about this, we should look at the potential benefits of this policy.

One particular service not being delivered, which affects most of us, is the failure to maintain road surfaces. In my own area, Milton Hill is a prime example. With drivers now having to slalom up and down the road to avoid serious damage to their vehicles, this could be enhanced by the council designating the road as a leisure feature and obtain additional revenues by charging entry fee at the top and bottom.

Another benefit is the additional employment created in the local motor industry as vehicles need to be repaired or replaced; the insurance and legal sectors also benefit when drivers wake up and bring class actions against the council. The possibilities are endless.

P J BROWNE

Worlebury Hill Road, Weston

Right to interview

SO BLEADON councillors feel they should have the right to interview candidates for the vacant seats on their council, so as to save a bill for £2,500 for an election.

This is called ‘nepotism’ and needs to be avoided, whatever the cost.

Bleadon has 892 voters for nine seats or 99 per seat and they were all uncontested at the last election.

This state of affairs is common in 77 per cent of non-town councils and is often due to the fact there are less or only enough candidates to fill the allotted number of seats.

In most of these cases there are far too many seats, why nine for Bleadon whereas say six would be plenty?

Clevedon 819 per seat, Portishead 872 and Weston 1817 shows how out of kilter the system has become.

There is an ongoing Local Government Boundary Commission looking into council numbers and it is my view, with the marvellous strides in information technology, the number of political positions paid and unpaid needed to allow democracy to flourish could be reduced to a third.

This would cut North Somerset Council from the present 61 to 21 with only favourable repercussions by the majority (60 per cent of voters did not vote in the last North Somerset Council election) of the public, who in the main, feels whoever gets elected can make little difference to their lives.

C J PEVERELLE

Edinburgh Place, Weston

Hinkley Point

THE recent decision by the Government to go ahead with a new nuclear reactor at Hinkley Point Nuclear Power Station is a betrayal by Cameron and his Government of promises made.

It seems inconceivable that after Centrica pulled out that the ConDem Government would consider underwriting the costs as EDF has demanded and fix the price of nuclear energy at double the original price for the next 35 years.

It is also unbelievable that it would allow this after claiming there would be no public subsidy, but of course the customers would be subsidising EDF.

The other important question is what is it going to do with nuclear waste?

Stop Hinkley, the local campaign has drawn attention to the fact that in the three wards of Burnham town that face Hinkley cancer cases are above the national average.

Some would argue that this development will provide jobs but at what price? We must call on the progressive movement to oppose this development. No job is worth putting future generations at risk from this insidious killer.

EDDIE ADAMS

Alliance for Green Socialism

Roman Road, Bleadon

Thank you

I WRITE to extend a very big thank you to the lady in Weston General Hospital information office who looked after my wife as well when she had to wait some time for hospital transport home last Thursday evening.

That kindness, like the excellent care afforded to Jenny by her consultant and oncology department throughout the last 18 months, makes Weston hospital something to be proud of.

What a great pity then, that the hospital pharmacy is not in the same league for service. Such is its importance the trust should address it immediately.

TIM PENWELL

Mead Vale, Worle

THE Tropicana saga goes on and on and the years go by.

North Somerset Council has, under its own steam, failed embarrassingly at every turn to manage a profitable transfer of this valuable Weston asset to the private sector whilst presiding over its dereliction, yet it seems determined to foil at every turn the efforts of local businessmen who wish to take this project on.

It appears to me that the council must have a hidden agenda, so determined is it to make sure that the current potential developer, Derek Mead, is obstructed and apparently ignored at almost every opportunity.

We also have our persistently negative and critical pro-council ‘propagandist’ who writes regularly in this section criticising Derek Mead (Trop (WSM) Ltd. What’s his problem with Derek Mead taking this on? It’s all Mr Mead’s risk and what has Weston got to lose? I would like to offer the following bit of encouragement to Derek Mead in the form of the third verse of a poem by Edgar Guest called ‘It Couldn’t Be Done’.

There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,

There are thousands to prophesy failure;

There are thousands to point out to you one by one,

The dangers that wait to assail you.

But just buckle it in with a bit of a grin,

Just take off your coat and go to it;

Just start to sing as you tackle the thing

That “couldn’t be done,” and you’ll do it.

By the way, I do not know Derek Mead.

R HAZZARD

Bleadon Hill, Weston