Does this approach offer best hospital services?

SIR – Looking at the future of Bedford Hospital, I have to give a
cautious welcome to the latest report from NHS East of England.

There is a lot of detail still to emerge and develop, but it looks like the previous threats raised over the future of maternity care and A&E at Bedford Hospital have been removed. Much of the detail now has to be developed locally by Bedfordshire PCT. I am particularly eager to see what proposals come out locally about the replacement of children's wards at some (unnamed) hospitals, the viability of emergency surgery and changes to neonatal care.

However, the recent episode of the £4m (then £2m) 'fine' on the hospital does raise serious questions. We now have a situation where our local hospital is having to 'make a profit' in order to first pay back a historic debt and now also a fine. This is money that could otherwise be used at the hospital for patient care. As local residents we have to question whether this approach gives us the best hospital services?

Coun Michael Headley
(Lib Dem), Putnoe
Hadleigh Close, Bedford

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Disgust at our so-called bus service

SIR – I, like many others, I'm sure, have been asking the burning
question that is, who is it at the Stagecoach bus 'company' that sets the (unrealistic) timetable for their routes and, indeed, who is it that sets the guidelines that constitute a 'service'?

I understand traffic can make a difference, but surely it is just plain ridiculous that they say a bus will be arriving every 12 minutes when, actually the bus will probably take more than an hour and you will be guaranteed to see at least three buses travelling from where it is that you need to go.

Just the other evening I waited at the bus stop in Union Street,
Bedford, for more than an hour to catch a bus to Brickhill, only to see – wait for it – four buses from the same route (number 6) coming the other way.

I think it's disgusting that this so-called public transport does nothing for the general public except make planning to get somewhere on time nigh impossible!

Dave Mcmillan
by email

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When politicians' actions just don't wash

SIR – To say that Tom Wise is a disgrace would be to state the obvious; but what does anger me is the fact that his party, in this case UKIP, just say, "we have removed the whip from him and he is no longer our concern".

These politicians, and there are others who have been dealt with in the same, deliberately include a protectionist policy to ring fence their jobs, then use a 'Caesar clause' of, 'we wash our hands of him'.

Some may remember that Mid Beds MP Nadine Dorries' predecessor, Jonathan Sayeed, never faced any criminal action, yet behaved badly enough he was forced to stand down as an MP.

Heaven help him if that was a postman. His feet wouldn't touch the ground.

Ken Thomas
by email

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New manager would help Eagles soar again

SIR – After another season that has ended in relegation for the Eagles, can anybody persuade the chairman that a new manager is now a
priority?

I have taken a straw poll among supporters and one name keeps
cropping up: he is local, has a good track record and knows the local scene. It is Ian Allinson.

Will the chairman act?

I doubt it. It is time for a change.

L Gurney
London Road, Biggleswade

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Whose interests does MP have at heart?

SIR – Having read Alistair Burt's report on happiness, I'm reminded of the saying that if your only tool is a hammer then every problem looks like a nail.

Having identified some problems from a rag bag of statistics, Mr Burt proceeds to beat society around the head with his own faith in the hope of achieving a cure.

Perhaps some of these problems are real, perhaps they should be looked into, but they should be looked into with an open mind, not with the built-in assumption that we would all be better off if we believed in Mr Burt's invisible friend in the sky. Mr Burt's constituents should ask what he has been doing for the last two years. Whose interests does he really have at heart?

KS Northwood
Armstrong Close, Wilstead

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Don't forget ratepayers have rights too

SIR – Once again last week a group of travellers camped near the cycle path alongside Longholme Way in Bedford. My wife was almost knocked off her bicycle when a white van sped along the cycle path then drove round and round churning up the grass.

A couple of their children were also driving round on quad bikes in the same area. I reported the matter to the police who said they would investigate and inform the council. The campers have since moved on leaving piles of rubbish and the skidmarks of a racetrack on the grass. Have any charges been laid? Have any litter fines been made?

Were any camping fees levied? I doubt it very much. It seems to be one law for them and another for us. Ratepayers have rights too.

Name and address supplied

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Plea to weed out this menace

SIR – For the last three years I have asked the county council about its weed-spraying plans for Flitwick, where there is currently to be seen an abundance of sprouting weeds, some two to three feet high, which will only get worse.

I was told there was not enough money to do this. I consider this to be false economy as weeds will inevitably eat into the fabric of roads and footpaths; they make a place look untidy, and they encourage littering and dog-fouling. I was also told the council would prefer that residents do not clear weeds themselves in case they injure
themselves.

When Central Beds starts to think about priorities for expenditure, can I put in a plea for a regular weed-spraying programme?

Jeremy Denn
Tennyson Road, Flitwick

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So Mr Mayor ... who did the dirty deed?

SIR – As usual with any bad decision, those who take the decision run for cover, and discovering who did the dirty deed is very difficult.

So, who did decide that the new council would run on unfair boundaries? No, not the Mayor, it seems. Then who? Who put the borough forward for unitary in the first place? Our Mayor.

Who chased about getting signatures on petitions and promising huge tax cuts to residents? Our Mayor. And who visited ministers in London
promising massive savings if he ran things? Our Mayor.

So who did take the decision to run on unfair boundaries that will see Oakley and its 1,899 residents with the same number of councillors as Queens Park with 5,580, ignoring the recently-reviewed county divisions that give each councillor virtually equal numbers of residents to represent and look after? Was it the person who denies even being near the decision? Our Mayor?

Coun Tom Wootton
Bedfordshire County Council

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How about talking issue over with humanists?

SIR – Re: 'Religious values would make us happier' (T&C, May 15). The report seemed to hold the built-in assumption that you have to have a religion and a god before you can be happy and good.

The corollary of that, of course, is that if you don't have a religion and a god, then you must be unhappy and wicked ... an idea which is not only untrue but rather an offence to those of us who are not religious.

A recent poll conducted by Mori indicated that more than one-quarter of the population of the UK are non-religious, and Mr Burt might discover that humanists are well able to make a meaningful contribution to his questions if given the chance.

So how about it, Mr Burt? As our Member of Parliament, you also
represent non-religious constituents. How about talking the issues over with us as well?

David Brittain
Media and communications officer, Bedfordshire Humanists


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Disaster for Clapham

SIR – I write with some concern at the Government announcement on May 19 that it plans to double the size of the Yarl's Wood immigration removal centre.

I believe this would be a disaster for Clapham and the wider area and it is vitally important local residents have their say.

Let's be clear on this. The expanded facility could open as early as 2010 and I will be writing to the border and immigration minister Liam Byrne to seek his assurance that he will be guided on his decision by the views of local residents.

Coun Nigel Sparrow
(Con) Clapham

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Nothing short of corporate vandalism

SIR – Our council really has a sure touch when it comes to prioritising and problem solving.

Over the past 20 years its predecessors have unerringly converted a pleasant riverside town into a grim place of charity and bargain basement shops, complete with a no-go central area at night.

You would have thought that the present incumbents would have been planning some urgent and early corrective action, but that is clearly too difficult for them.

Instead their choice is to go in a totally irrelevant and tiny-minded direction by deciding on the corporate vandalism of their own bowling greens.

Their first conversion, no doubt at considerable cost, will be to turn the most attractive and popular green of them all, the Priory in the town centre, into a yobs', winos' and drug addicts' drop-in centre,
otherwise known as a public garden. I tremble to think what their next cock-eyed venture might be. Judging from their track record, it could well be filling in the river on health and safety grounds!

But seriously, is there something useful our friends in the Town Hall could be doing?

Any ideas anyone?

Ken Wight
Northampton Road, Bromham

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Experience which left a bitter taste

SIR – Why does our local Wells and Young's brewery ship its splendid Bombardier beer 170 miles up the M6 and sell the stuff to 'flat-capped' northerners for £2.15 a pint while charging us in Bedfordshire a wallet-busting £2.80 or more?

In fact, the cheapest pint at a town centre hotel in Rochdale, Lancashire, where I had the misfortune to stay the other week, cost just £1.95 – 75p less than the price of Wells' rather ordinary Eagle in my Ampthill local.

Do we really have to subsidise their boozing in such a way? Or are our rapacious local brewery bosses just taking the people of Bedfordshire for a rather expensive ride?

I must say the experience all left me feeling very bitter.

Charlie Garth
Flitwick Road, Ampthill

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Nothing eco-friendly about new towns

SIR – There is nothing eco-friendly about building a new town in the middle of the countryside.

It is staggering that urban areas such as Trafford, Coventry and the Wirral, that had asked for eco-homes, were turned down, while the Government wants towns in the middle of unspoilt countryside. Of the 15 proposed sites (including one in the Marston Vale), 12 are within a 120-mile radius of the Home Counties.

In addition to this, 13 of the 15 are in Conservative constituencies.

This is an assault on Middle England, both in the political and the geographical sense. Labour is knocking down houses in the north and stuffing even more people into the southern counties. Central planning of this kind went out with the Soviet Union.

We should decide these issues through local referendums.

While each house will have a bicycle, the siting of these towns in the country means that their inhabitants will have to drive to work.

The reason for this spree of new building is that Labour has granted tax breaks for the building of new houses, but not for renovating existing accommodation.

To compound the problem further, proposals by the Government to offer tax incentives for those companies that sought to develop existing brownfield sites were found to contravene EU Law.

Our birth rate has been in decline for 40 years. The reason Labour needs these new towns is that it has lost control of our borders.

Daniel Hannan MEP
by email daniel.hannan@europarl.europa.eu