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King's Lynn & West Norfolk letters August 9: River Wensum, St John's Surgery, Terrington, Truss/Sunak Tory tussle, nuclear armageddon and diversity




RIVER

Politicians have failed those they represent

I wrote my first newspaper letter on the state of the River Wensum in 1970 and have written so many letters since to the Environment Agency and Natural England and members of parliament. The Wensum, the only significant river to a huge catchment area, generates its volume of flow from below ground aquifers, the same aquifers that are used for domestic/corporate supply.

The swollen River Wensum at Fakenham after Storm Eunice.
The swollen River Wensum at Fakenham after Storm Eunice.

These ground aquifers have been diminishing with a corresponding loss of volume to the Wensum and its tributaries.

My recent enquiry has shown that three years ago below ground aquifers reached dangerously low levels. Over the last three years we have witnessed, as an allotment holder, the most difficult growing years I’ve ever known, I’m in my 81st year.

In 2003 the EA and NE instigated a Wensum restoration plan with which to restore biodiversity. This restoration programme was driven by rare inhabitants of the river and to remove silt from mill sites throughout the Wensum’s 71 kilometres.

Scenes from the 2019 Fakenham Raft Race held on the River Wensum on Goggs Mill Lane in Fakenham. Picture: Matthew Usher.
Scenes from the 2019 Fakenham Raft Race held on the River Wensum on Goggs Mill Lane in Fakenham. Picture: Matthew Usher.

To achieve these aims, which cost millions of pounds, the water course was to be narrowed, with gravel riffles placed, to replace meanders that had been lost to a man made engineered river to accommodate mill sites.

The narrowing of the water course was to speed up flow to remove the silt.

The speeding up of a diminished volume of flow is surely a contradiction to the aim of restoration which was to enhance biodiversity as it has resulted in an increasing depletion of underground resources and is inevitable to an increase in demand to increasing population.

What is the state of underground resources in Norfolk at the present time? I realise that North Norfolk is slightly different from West Norfolk but most of Norfolk is affected by underground resources.

West Norfolk has the recourse of Fenland rivers, the cut off channel from Denver supplying much of Essex as an example.

Thanks for your help in the Middleton stop drain, that appears to be still improving though flow levels are very low.

It should be noticed that the expert conservationists are now employing beavers to back up water to marginal land and farmers are now being paid to increase marginal/marsh land to its original status.

More growth is not met even though they have the benefit of census information.

All things that are essential to civilization are struggling to cope: health, transport, power, water.

Law and order politicians have consistently failed the populations that they purport to represent.

Barry Tomlin

Lynn

Scenes from the 2019 Fakenham Raft Race held on the River Wensum on Goggs Mill Lane in Fakenham. Picture: Matthew Usher.
Scenes from the 2019 Fakenham Raft Race held on the River Wensum on Goggs Mill Lane in Fakenham. Picture: Matthew Usher.

POLITICS

Those of a certain age have been doomed before

Well, here we go again folks. According to the media, nuclear armageddon is once again hanging over the dear old planet.

Beats me how Earth can take any more, climate change causing all kinds of weather mayhem, tree huggers going flat out hugging trees or supergluing themselves to this that and ‘tother.

Now we’re doomed Jim I tell you, dooooooooooooomed.

China loses face to an American geriatric female politician, who went against an equally geriatric president and paid a visit to Taiwan and its leader, and goes all out for a major military exercise (hopefully it will be only an exercise) to show their masculinity.

Those of us of a certain age have been dooooooooomed before, 30-odd years ago, when the same threat hung over us during the days of the Soviet Union, so we’re used to it. However, younger members of the human race might not understand the implications of being dooooooomed. It will be of no use running off to Tesco and stocking up on rolls of toilet paper – the toilet could have been vaporised into nuclear dust.

Better to stock up on Heinzies Beanzies or anything else in a tin just in case one survives. Breaking wind and upsetting the ozone layer will be the least of your concerns.

No doubt the UK Parliament, or what’s left of it will howl “send a gunboat” and dispatch one of our aircraft carriers with its complement of 24 (on a good day) stealth aircraft. The American carrier USS Ronald Reagan has a complement of close to 6,000 personnel and 90 aircraft on board – sort of brings things into some kind of perspective, doesn’t it?

How did a mighty great American battleship get to carry the name of a B-rate movie actor ?

Enough of this goonery Jim I say, enough. Eccles, send for Minnie Bannister, our prime minister elect. She’ll know what to do.

Alan Mudge

Pentney

A thermonuclear blast in The War Game pseudo-documentary film devastates citizens. Photo: British Film Institute/Youtube
A thermonuclear blast in The War Game pseudo-documentary film devastates citizens. Photo: British Film Institute/Youtube

They want Truss in power so they can control her

It’s bad enough UK voters having to endure a Tory leadership contest between two right wing candidates, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, who both espouse the same neoliberal Thatcherite orthodoxy that has caused so much structural damage to the UK economy over many years.

While they try to out Thatcherite each other to score cheap political points, it’s obvious the ex-chancellor and hedge funder Rishi Sunak is far more well grounded and fluent on macro economics and finance compared to Liz Truss who, by her mere body language and incoherence, obviously has to be regularly coached by her advisors prior to appearing at hustings and TV debates to explain what ‘her policies’ and actual beliefs are.

Once a Republican, a Liberal Democrat and of course a remainer (till after the referendum result was announced, of course).

Truss is a typical chameleon female clone of Johnson, proposing anything to advance her career and now to become the Prime Minister such as tax cuts that obviously sounds appealing to millions of voters who are hit by the cost of living crisis, yet nothing about the less glamorous small print like its inflationary effects.

Unlike Sunak, who has been recently interviewed by renowned probing broadcaster Andrew Neil.

This probably explains why she refused to be because she knows her political shortcomings would immediately be exposed by such an encounter.

However, this is why the majority of Tory members and the Tory hard right like the ERG (European Research Group) who couldn’t care a hoot about economic detail or economic pragmatism as long as they’re not adversely economic affected, want her to become the next Tory PM because they know she’ll be a far easier Premiership to control and manipulate than what Sunak’s might be.

Nick Vinehill

Snettisham

Foreign Secretary and Conservative leadership candidate Liz Truss. Picture: PA/Aaron Chown
Foreign Secretary and Conservative leadership candidate Liz Truss. Picture: PA/Aaron Chown

HEALTH

All hospital staff were so supportive

I had an occasion to visit my doctor at St John’s Surgery in Lynn recently.

The doctor advised me to have a blood test that day. I went directly to the hospital and I was seen immediately.

The next day I received a call from the hospital asking if it would be possible to go back the following day. I was seen promptly and had an X-ray straight away.

All suggestions and recommendations by the staff at the hospital have been successful.

I would like to take the opportunity to sincerely thank all of the staff who offered the help and support during my visit.

Tony Adkins

Terrington St Clement

St John's Surgery.
St John's Surgery.

DIVERSITY

This rot started back in the 80s

Attorney General Suella Braverman is to be applauded for her purge of the ‘diversity’ culture in her department, which needs to be expanded.

This rot started decades ago and is now getting a belated backlash. In the 80s in Home Office employment I asked for a white coffee, no sugar, only to be told that in future I should say, ‘coffee, milk, no sugar’. It was milking political correctness! The root of the problem lies with white patronising liberals who think they know better than others, where disagreement gets demonised.

David Fleming

Downham



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