Letters on regeneration in Broad Street, March, and the pay of politicians
Here are the readers' letters from this week's Fenland Citizen...
Reality will be different than the dream
With reference to the proposed Broad Street regeneration. Trees are not great shoppers. Shoppers arrive in cars.
Over the years, traffic lights and the reduction of town
centre parking have meant an an ever-dwindling Broad Street footfall, and this has resulted in the closure of so many shops.
Traffic lights implemented when Sainsburys provided the cash have resulted in far worse traffic flow than before their arrival.
The main beneficiary of the planners’ “regeneration” will be Sainsburys as when popping into town there will be few alternative parking opportunities but for their car park. As ever with computer generated artist’s impressions, the dream bears little relevance to the reality.
Jonathan Moore
via email
The results published by FDC are meaningless
Is it worth spending £8million to improve the traffic waiting times in March Broad Street by a few seconds ?
I would suggest that these few seconds will soon be lost when pedestrians use the new zebra crossings shown in the plan.
The current traffic lights control the pedestrian movements as well as the vehicles.
I would like Fenland District Council representatives to tell us how pedestrian movements being introduced into the VISSIM modelling software will affect the results ?
The answer is that the software is not able to simulate random pedestrian movements, therefore the results published by the council are meaningless.
Kevin Turner
March
We need MPs on workers’ wages
Since the last general election in 2019, Tory MPs have taken £15.2million from second incomes.
Former prime minister Theresa May leads the way, with £2.5million from giving talks to organisations such as JP Morgan bank and private equity firm Apax Partners.
She’s followed closely by Boris Johnson. He accumulated £1 million for just four speeches, according to the Daily Mirror, at £30,000 an hour.
This isn’t unique to the Tories. Liberal Democrat MPs have taken £171,000, while Scottish National Party (SNP) representatives have taken £149,000.
Right-wing Labour MPs have accepted tens of thousands of pounds from MPM Connect, a company with no obvious line of business.
Keir Starmer has earned an extra £26,000 from legal work, while serving as an MP prior to becoming leader of the Labour Party.
This is on top of their £84,144 salary. Many workers could only dream of earning this.
There is another year ahead of rising energy prices, fuel costs and rent. Typical energy bills are expected to shoot up again from £2,000 to £2,850.
Wholesale gas prices have dropped, but that hasn’t been passed to working-class people. Instead, bills are kept higher to keep profits up and ensure investors get their cut of the cream.
Average disposable incomes are likely to fall by more than £2,000 this year. It is obvious why we’re seeing swathes of strike action from workers fighting for pay and conditions.
The Tories are so out of touch now. MPs are getting a pay rise this year of almost £2,500. MPs expose their greed time and time again. They expect bloated wages, plus more income from side jobs, while their constituents struggle with the cost of living.
We need workers’ MPs on a worker’s wage.
John Smithee
Wisbech
