Your letters on Downham Market and King's Lynn train ticket office closures, Huw Edwards, new homes in Hunstanton and Love Island
Here are the letters from the Lynn News of Tuesday, July 18, 2023...
I suppose this is all a sign of the times
Closing railway station ticket offices such as in Lynn seems a slippery slope.
We arrived at the station today on Wednesday to buy tickets for the 11.42am train only to find the ticket office closed and a notice stating it wouldn't open until 1.15pm. A sign of the future times?
There was no obvious staff presence until we accessed the platform using our tickets purchased from the machine and a single employee was visible but not offering her help with others less able to use the machines.
J Palmer
Gaywood
Do they want us to stay home and just rot?
It’s impossible for an 80 year old like myself to read the format on the southward bound platform ticket machine at Downham train station because of light reflection. The whole system of getting tickets from the machine for future travel is a nightmare, even for some younger people.
When I asked a train line employee on the platform on Wednesday how I could book a parking space for three days ahead, the poor man (and the chap he was talking to) couldn’t do it.
Eventually, I had to return to the person at the ticket office, who had to leave her post (fortunately it wasn’t rush hour) and come to the ticket machine to do it for me.
The staff at the ticket office are now prevented from selling tickets for the car park - these have to be purchased separately from the machine.
Why?
What a crazy system!
And now the rail management bureaucrats have decided in their great wisdom that they should abolish all ticket office staff at Lynn and Downham stations - an even crazier idea. I’m 80 years of age, partially disabled because of a serious and life threatening illness last year, and absolutely need my car to get to Downham station - and home again afterwards.
What are people like myself supposed to do if the local rail authorities close Downham and Lynn’s train station ticket offices??
Stay at home and rot, I suppose…
It is good to read in this paper that Jo Rust is campaigning against closure - but where on earth is ‘invisible’ MP for South West Norfolk Liz Truss, on this issue?
Too busy as usual waffling away on ‘growth’ and pocketing huge speaker fees in the process, to bother about the real issues that affect so many of her elderly constituents. That is not why we pay her to be our MP.
Dan O’Connor
Downham
We all deserve to have a second chance
I, like many others, am shocked and surprised that Huw Edwards has been named as the BBC presenter suspended over allegations made by the Sun newspaper of inappropriate behaviour.
These allegations have been found, by the Met Police, to be of no criminal activity and therefore they will not investigate further.
The family of the person allegedly involved have cast doubt on these allegations. He is now in hospital being treated for a major mental health problem.
He is, in my opinion, an iconic figure in British broadcasting and I feel sorry for him and his family at this difficult time for them.
Even if there were a degree of truth in this, no one has been hurt, except Mr Edwards. We all have skeletons in our cupboards we’d rather other people didn’t know about, and I admit I’m one of them.
At an event more than 2,000 years ago, our Lord Jesus saw a woman tied up about to be stoned by men who claimed she had committed adultery. Jesus confronted them and said: “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone!” The men dispersed. Jesus forgave and told the woman to “go forth and sin no more”.
We all deserve a second chance.
George Wood
Congham
The town needs long-term plans
Hunstanton’s new mayor has declared his intent to ‘build more houses’.
Such Messianic proclamations indicate an intellectual laziness and a disturbing connect from local (strong) opinion.
His long record of community service deserves respect but he appears to have forgotten the reasons why he relocated here 15 years ago and now seemingly wishes to, literally, bulldoze them aside.
As an accountant with a property portfolio and extensive business network, perhaps his motivation is less transparent than should be the case for someone who volunteers to serve our community.
Perhaps his comment was made in the blood rush of his halo moment.
Whatever the case, he should be crystal clear that the town needs long-term, definitive and comprehensively assessed priorities that are competently managed by public servants who do not put friends’, ideology or politics themselves ahead of the people who live here.
I cordially invite him to respond by submitting an article to this newspaper, in context of existing borough and town planning, including the Neighbourhood Plan that a former mayor worked very hard to produce.
It frameworks deliberate, measured and balanced development with supporting infrastructure and essential services whilst concurrently protecting the historical character of the area and its outstanding environmental quality.
Bill Martin
Hunstanton
How long do I have to put up with her?
Without wishing to emphasise just how out of touch with the culture of millennials and/or Gen Z I am, could I ask how much longer we can expect the Jess Watch pink column to continue please?
I have tried to fathom out the content or storyline but I fear that unless one watches Love Island much of the rather
baffling tittle-tattle seems pretty lame fare and could be seem as little more than banal drivel.
Sorry to be so mean spirited but frankly the ongoing saga as relayed by Rebekhah Chilvers isn't doing much to persuade me to start watching any time soon.
Steve Mackinder
Denver
EDITOR: We’ll keep running the column while Jess is still on the island. Sorry Steve!
Turning your stamps into donations
The Royal Mail has been introducing new stamps with barcodes which means that as of July 31, regular stamps that do not have a barcode will no longer be valid. These can be swapped via the Royal Mail Stamp Swap Out scheme but readers can also donate them to Kidney Care UK to help raise money for people with chronic kidney disease (CKD); a disease that affects 10% of the population, meaning that as many as 90,368 people are affected in Norfolk alone.
At Kidney Care UK, the UK’s leading kidney patient support charity, we collect used (and unused) stamps and turn them into cash donations. Every year we receive thousands of stamps, generating around £2,500 to support people with kidney disease when they need it most.
In March this year we received the highest number of requests for financial support that the charity has ever known in more than 40 years. Almost half of these were for one of our emergency hardship grants or from people needing help paying their utility bills, so your support is vital.
All readers need to do to help is to pop their used or unused non-barcoded stamps into an envelope and to send them to: Kidney Care UK - Stamps and Coins Appeal 2023, 3 The Windmills, St Mary's Close, Alton, GU34 1EF.
Laura Toop
Kidney Care UK
