Your letters - May 28, 2010

Tilling Green flooding fears on doorstep

It was with a Rye smile (pun intended) but a very sad heart that I read your lead article regarding the new housing estate being built off Udimore Road. This development is immediately behind my home and I watch daily as that beautiful green field disappears in the name of progress.

The residents living on Tilling Green and the lower end of Udimore Road have every right to be worried about flooding, and as your piece states Southern Water have expressed concerns over the sewage, but Aroncorp has chosen to ignore this even though the Inspector ruled that the sewage system must be addressed before work commenced.

Also, Aroncorp has recently changed part of their planning application regarding the cycle path. They will now contribute after 35 houses have been sold and not after the first house as instructed by the Inspector.

Unfortunately, this development has started and will be completed regardless of the people's concerns, but there are other problems that will arise apart from the flooding. Just do the maths. 135 houses.

That's potentially 270 adults with maybe 2-3 children per house giving approximately 405 children. That's 675 more people living in Rye. Now just think of the services we presently have.

Can our one school accommodate these extra children without any detriment to those already there? Can our two doctors surgeries take on all these extra patients? Where are the jobs?

Where are the transport links to London? Then if the 270 adults all have cars, it greatly adds to the amount of traffic in Rye along with pollution etc.

We tried very hard to encourage local people to write to Rother Planning Department and if everyone had written saying 'no' to the application it might have been stopped. Apathy seemed to take over, and when we received comments like 'it won't really affect me' I realised then that we would lose the case.

Now it's too late and Rye must suffer the consequences of this development, and for me, the thought comes to mind about horses and stable doors.

Mrs Pat Mash

Udimore Road, Rye

Germany avoids the worst PR perils

Oh the perils of Proportional Representation (PR, letters 21 May) leading to Mediterranean style flaky coalitions changing every week, with public spending out of control.

Hang on a minute, haven't we just had 13 years of so-called "strong" one party government that managed to rack up a record budget deficit? In stark contrast, the first action of the Lib-Con coalition has been to get public spending under control to signal stability to the financial markets.

Were Britain to consider adopting PR, we should look to examples more suited to northern European economies, like Germany for instance whose voting system was devised by Britain and its allies after the war.

This model of PR (the Additional Member System - AMS) sees the electors vote for both a local candidate and also a party to form a national government. Once the local constituency candidates have been elected, additional seats are allocated to the parties reflecting their share of the popular vote. Yes, this does very often lead to coalition governments, which in the German experience has seen politicians routinely working together to achieve economic growth far outperforming most countries in the world ...but we wouldn't want that – would we?

Looking even closer to home, AMS is the system used to elect the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly, which both have records of coalition administrations working together for the common good.

Incidentally the Conservatives do significantly better in Scotland under AMS than they would using the "first past the post" system, dispelling the myth that it's only the Lib-Dems that benefit from PR.

So let's keep party politics out of choosing our voting system – PR is the only system that delivers government reflecting the will of the people and, if implemented using AMS, we can achieve this whilst retaining our local constituency MPs.

Clive Bishop

Asten Fields, Battle

I was in Tony Smith's situation, too

I am grateful to Tony Smith for his honesty over UKIP's withdrawal at the General Election. (Letters 21/5/10).

I too was pushed aside at the 2001 election for Nigel Farage to launch his attack on Greg Barker; UKIP then parachuted me into Eastbourne as their PPC, after which I left the party to campaign independently.

So, Tony has my full sympathy and will have my total support if he decides to stand again for Bexhill/Battle - I only pray their committee won't make the same stupid mistake again by kicking out a trusted local candidate.

Barry M Jones

Bixley Lane, Beckley

Bells will ring out to celebrate association

If you are a resident of, or visiting Battle this Saturday morning, you should hear St Mary's church bells ringing out, for around three hours solid. Battle bell ringers are attempting to ring a Peal to mark the 125th anniversary of the formation of the Sussex Association; Battle is one of the founder churches. It is extremely difficult to fully explain to a non ringer exactly what is defined as a Peal. The bells are tuned to a normal (diatonic) scale, and we start by ringing down the scale, highest note to lowest note. The order in which the bells sound is then altered to give a different sequence. This is called a "change". During a Peal, we ring 5040 of changes, taking us around three hours to complete. The tricky bit is, that no one is telling us which change is next, we all individually work it out as we go, using rules set out by the method, in this case, Grandsire Triples. No one has a pencil and paper, nor can we confer with anyone, it is all done mentally. It is very much a group effort; a mistake from one ringer can mean the whole effort collapses in a matter of seconds! The first Peal rung in Sussex was here at Battle, in 1739. All the bells have been re-cast since then.

Battle now has a formidable, heavy ring of eight bells, the tenor weighs 21 cwt (1109Kg) and was cast in 1825 at Whitechapel, the same company that cast Big Ben. The oldest, the 4th and 5th, were cast in 1803 and weigh 7 and 9 cwt respectively. They were last overhauled and re-tuned by Whitechapel in 1962, and retained the oak frame in which they are hung, which was built in 1890 by John Warner. At that time, John Warner re-cast the seventh bell, presumably because the original was cracked.

We shall start our peal attempt at 09:30. Please do have a listen and enjoy this unique British tradition. Bells that you hear on the continent are not rung in this manner. We hope you enjoy it, if the bells have stopped before 12:30, then the attempt has failed for some reason! If you don't enjoy our ringing, please be patient; we don't do it very often. Try to remember that there are eight skilled ringers working and concentrating very hard to produce that sound made by bells that have resided in Battle very much longer than any of us!

Alan Turner

Tower captain St Mary's Battle.

Vandals should face proper punishment

At the Parish Assembly of 2009, in answer to a question on the problem of mindless damage caused by juvenile vandals, the then chief of Battle police said basically 'We know who they are - they are hyper-active youths and the co-operation of their parents is important''.

At this year's Assembly, in answer to more or less the same question, this year's chief of police gave more or less the same answer, except that this time it was a case of 'We know who they are, but we don't want to crimilanise them'. Then in the subsequent Observer was the report of the damage done to the local cricket pitch by vandals (for the third time). This in addition to previous damage to the Memorial Hall (at least three times) the Childrens' Play area at Battle Abbey and damage at Battle & Langton school etc. etc.

I think we all appreciate that the action taken by the police is not necessarily the action they would prefer to take, but is dictated by Government. Whatever the answer, it isn't workng. The more these young vandals know that the punishment won't fit the crime, the more they will go on doing whatever appeals to their warped mental processes, and their parents will go on not knowing where they are or what they are up to.

Punishment must mean punishment - it must hurt, not necessarily physically, but restrictively (cancel their driving licence, or don't give them one when they reach driving age) and in the pocket.

Let us hope the new coalition government coalesces on this obvious solution.

John Hill

Glengorse, Battle

Dinosaur story apostrophe catastrophe

Much as I enjoy reading the Rye Observer, the apostrophes in the wrong place are often leaping out and hitting me. How is it that your journalists did not learn about them at school? "It's" equals "it is". "Fairlight reveals it's dinosaur secrets....." is therefore wrong, and no apostrophe is needed. "Its" is the possessive, the same as his or hers. I was so incensed by this huge headline that I forgot to read the interesting article until later!

Jan Weston

School Lane, Peasmarsh

Editor - Thank you for pointing out the errant apostrophe in our headline. You are quite right, of course. Please rest assured it crept in unwittingly and our attention to grammar has not become extinct.

Bench thieves are the lowest of the low

What kind of person is it that steals a wooden bench seat from the A2100 London Road Battle? This seat was erected by a widow in memory of her husband (who regularly walked into Battle) and for the benefit of others toiling up the hill to do their shopping. Despicable low life I say!

Pauline Price

Virgins Lane,

Battle

Time to draw a line under the hall saga?

The persistent flow of letters to your paper over the last few years from Mr Bridgland, (latest 14 May) will leave your readers, particularly those in Udimore, with no doubts regarding his opposition to the new village hall.

The structure of the hall is now built and internal finishing work is in progress.

Is it not time to draw a line under this topic in "Letters" and move on?

Peter Marshall

Udimore