Letters, Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Shame about Keith irrational outburst
ONE of the better columns in the Echo is that of Keith Newbery, whose writing is generally to be admired, except when it comes to his irrational annual outburst against the Wimbledon tennis tournament.
Firstly, he berates the crowd for getting behind "some loser". As there are eventually 127 losers in both the men's and women's draw, which particular loser does he have in mind?
Then the home crowd gets it in the neck for supporting British players. Well, excuse me, but isn't that just what a home crowd is supposed to do? If not, then I look forward to his critiques on the crowds at Wembley, Twickenham and Lord's, to name a few.
Furthermore, his attack on Andrew Murray bordered on racism. I wonder if Mr Newbery is aware that Murray is a survivor of the Dunblane massacre?
It seems Keith Newbery has a lot in common with that old Commumist curmudgeon, Jack Jones, who thought Royal Ascot should be done away with.
The answer is simple, of course. If you don't like tennis, then don't watch – and don't criticise those of us who do.
J Watson,
Larchwood,
Washington
New Vaux debacle?
IS another Tesco-style Vaux debacle in the making?
We, the public, have reached 2009 and all city planning is conducted in the secret corridors of power and geared to serve the means by which the public can be best exploited. Serving the public does not enter into the equation.
For example, the planned Sunderland Strategic Transport Corridor (SSTC) link by Sunderland arc is specifically designed to meander through land owned by property speculators like O+H properties which now owns the Grove Cranes site.
Also holding the council to ransom (if they continue arc plans), are the landowners at Deptford, Doxford's and the Pallion shipyard.
Here's an example. At the UDP Public Inquiry which ended in February 1997, to look into objections to the retail development of Arriva at their land between Trimdon Street and Farringdon Row, Joplings Ltd and Arriva each lined up a barrister, a solicitor and a professional town-planning expert, in opposition to each other
Also present in Committee room 6 at the Sunderland Civic Centre was a council officer taking notes and one member of the public.
An objection had been made by Joplings against retail development plans by Arriva at their Trimdon Street/Farringdon Row site.
Joplings argued that this would be an "out of town retail development" contrary to council planning policy.
It was also argued that the westward drift of retail development was deleterious to city centre businesses and with the marginalisation of Joplings store, thousands of jobs would be lost. The city centre needed regeneration eastward towards Sunniside and High Street.
The Joplings legal team said that the western boundary for city centre retail development was set at St Michael's Way beyond which no retail business should go. With the counter-arguments by the Arriva legal and the planning expert team, an impasse was quickly reached.
Then the contestants requested a ten-minute recess for private discussion in the corridor.
Upon their return to the committee room, the Joplings barrister withdrew the objection to the Arriva plans. A compromise had been reached and the parties had got what they wanted. There was no further business. Without more ado, this session of the public inquiry was ended.
The moral of this story is that the reason for all town and country planning legislation is that it should be in the public interest. But here in Sunderland nothing has changed.
Ron McQuillan,
Hylton Castle,
Sunderland
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Friday 10 February 2012
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