Your letters - August 27, 2010

Is Jerwood plea just a headline-grabber?

I READ with interest your report in the Observer on Councillor Stevens' campaign to obtain free admission to the new Jerwood Gallery for locals.

Cllr Stevens is both wise and experienced and therefore aware that there is no such thing as free admission. So how does he plan to finance this proposal?

Does he think that Hastings Borough Council (HBC) should pick up the tab by paying the Jerwood Foundation for locals visiting the gallery? If so, how? Should HBC and Jerwood fix an annual estimated figure for 'local' visits, which sum HBC will then pay to Jerwood? Or does he visualize a scheme where the Jerwood reception desk staff will log every local visitor with 100 per cent accuracy and bill HBC accordingly, allowing of course for variable admission prices for children, students, seniors, the unwaged, and essential carers.

The Jerwood gallery staff will also need proof that locals really are just that. How will Hastings' residents prove their status? By presenting council tax account statements or public utility receipts? Or will Jerwood be supplied with a copy of the electoral roll, (which is incomplete as many are not registered)?

Before we all write to HBC in support of Cllr Stevens' scheme as he asks us to do, we need answers to these questions because we know that HBC has no money of its own, only that raised from national and local taxpayers. Therefore any subsidy to Jerwood will ultimately come from our pockets, if not immediately when we enter the gallery.

Does this mean that to finance 'free' local Jerwood admissions another day centre or cherished local service may have to close?

The Jerwood Foundation is a legally registered charity, bound by its articles to collect art and to maintain its collections. Like all charities it cannot present a deficit budget and presumably needs the admission monies raised by the gallery to fund its legally-approved activities. All other considerations aside, the expense to the foundation of setting up and administering a separate admission scheme for residents of Hastings will be beyond its charitable funding remit.

Before HBC's cabinet members discuss this issue on September 13 Cllr Stevens needs urgently to review his idea; otherwise the electorate will merely regard it as another expensive headline-grabber, without substance or practicality.

ERICA BARRETT,

The Ridge.

Most of us want the link road

ONCE more we have a letter from Nick Bingham protesting at the possibility that the link road will be built (at last).

The vast majority of people in the two towns recognise the desperate need for this road.

The economic cost of the delays on the A259 here are notorious; the many hours when drivers are held up, the noxious fumes (Bulverhythe Road is the most polluted in the south east, especially with damaging particulates) and the accidents along the stretch all call for the road to be built.

I'm sure some people want us all to travel on foot or bicycle, grow our own food and only buy products from very local sources, but it isn't practicable.

I walk miles each day, have a bicycle and use public transport, e.g. for journeys to London, but I also have a small low carbon emitting car and accept that much of the products we all use come by road.

The new road will open up areas for employment '“ and with 15 jobseeker allowance claimants for every job vacancy who on earth can object to more jobs?

We also need to remove as much through traffic from the seafront.

We are the only substantial seaside resort where the main road actually runs along the seafront, which is detrimental to the tourist experience too.

Finally, I suggest that the Alliance looks at all new roads '“ they are well planted, rapidly attract wonderful wildlife and enhance the open space through which they travel.

ARTHUR KITSON,

Old London Road.

Dog mess will never go away

THIS morning while walking through Manhattan Gardens to purchase my daily paper, there was three or four lots of dog faeces on the pavement.

There are two dog bins - one at the beginning and one at the end of the pathway.

There were several flies around one pile of mess which I had to avoid as they flew away when I passed.

When our dog was alive, my husband and I always took bags with us and cleared up after him.

To be honest, I do not think this problem will ever be solved. If the wrongdoer was approached, there would probably be some verbal confrontation or maybe physical.

I just don't know what the solution is.

JENNY MOLLOY,

Middle Road.

I AM very disappointed and appalled at the way the new Labour council has tried to crack down and tackle the dog poo in Hastings.

Most people know that there is a big issue with dog mess in public places in Hastings. But the previous council managed to cut down on the revolting sewage that flooded the streets.

When the council changed I thought it would make a good difference. I can't see that putting hundreds of signs up in Hastings, with a rude word in big letters will do so. This will just encourage the young children of Hastings to use the word.

People visiting Hastings will not like it '“ a sign in your face and making you feel uncomfortable.

What is even more unbelievable, the Labour council wants you to show the swear word on a big poster so everyone can see it.

This is a foolish and Homer Simpson-like manner of doing things. These are horrific, unchristian and unnecessary posters.

I want Labour to rethink its posters and signs to make our town have a friendly and upbeat future.

SHANE ATKINS,

The Ridge.

Responsibility starts with parents

Re: Heroic teenagers saved friends life after fall on to railway line:

In your article the mother of these teenage boys says that St Leonards Station 'should be manned '“ there's a lot going on around there '“ at least there would have been an adult there to help them."

The adult who should be helping them is you and your partner, and before asking rail companies to man stations around the clock perhaps she should tell us why her children (one 14 years old) are running around central St Leonards at 2.40am on a Saturday night?

Perhaps if the parents of all involved were more responsible one of them wouldn't have ended up on the live rail and in hospital.

These children shouldn't be lauded as heroes and the parents should be ashamed of themselves.

KEITH VALE,

London Road, St Leonards.