Lake Grounds

I UNDERSTAND that North Somerset Council (NSC) is planning to introduce parking charges in the Lake Grounds.

Can you explain to me very simply, for whose benefit are the Lake Grounds designed for?

If it is a park for local people, then it is fair to state that the Lake Grounds have limited attraction for families; the current under-investment in play equipment is in stark contrast to Blaise Castle, which does not charge car parking. Although any walk along the esplanade confirms that the majority of people using car parking currently are either elderly or disabled, are these the out of town tourists inferred recently to in the Times?

If it is a tourist attraction, great, but let’s face facts, a dozen hot days a year will not sustain a pool trust indefinitely.

Nor does it address the issue of why the tourist attraction is run so uncommercially with a monopoly of one concessionaire. The vision of the Lake Grounds is either one, or the other and the current situation is a bodge.

If NSC wants a tourist attraction, the Lake Ground residents an attractive asset, not an eyesore and local families a park fit for purpose.

Consider inspiration from leisure assets that succeed in delivering those complicated tasks such as Bowood or any other coherent vision and re-invent the Lake Grounds

But first, please tell me, for whose benefit are the Lake Grounds for?

NICK CARTER-BROWN

Leigh View Road, Portishead

Thank you

I WOULD like to express my grateful thanks to the driver of the 359 bus and to the passengers who came to my assistance when I collapsed at Avon Way on March 1.

Thank you ladies for phoning the ambulance and staying with me until it arrived.

MIKE PASSMORE

Avon Way, Portishead

Either end

CLLR Lees seems wedded to the idea that building on the greenbelt stimulates growth.

He also seems to believe that we don’t have enough people living around these parts because shops in Nailsea are closing (North Somerset Times, April 10).

I think the reason may have more to do with the presence of two national supermarket branches at either end of the High Street, a problem that is endemic in every High Street in the country - and as for young people being attracted here by this new property, I think he will find that the house builders like to build large detached houses, preferably with a nice view overlooking an unspoilt bit of countryside, hence their interest in the greenbelt - not social housing for young people.

Politicians at national level plainly believe this “build your way out of recession” fallacy. The Spanish tried it and their coast line is now ruined by hundreds of unfinished unsaleable houses that are being pulled down.

The Irish tried it and Ring of Kerry became the Ring of White Bungalows with the government having to legislate to prevent it going further.

We are told that the population may reach 70million before much longer.

Developers now have a green light to concrete over ever larger parts of the green belt and flatten thousands more acres with ridiculous white elephant high speed railways that no one wants except the usual vested interests.

We are already nett importers of food and it isn’t fanciful to suppose that the countries that supply it will want to keep it in future for their own burgeoning populations.

You can’t grow much food on roads, housing sites and railway lines, so Cllr Lees needs to heed the logic of where this is leading us, and the democratic process, and get on side with his constituents that turned up to rightly protest against this unwanted expansion of the urban sprawl hereabouts.

ALAN TURNER

Backwell Common, Backwell

Pressure

WITH reference to your article, Battle looming over appeal for greenbelt land review, April 10.

Without a doubt one of the most ridiculous set of comments I have ever heard from a local councillor: “Our population is reducing so let’s build more houses.”

Will the councillors only allow young wealthy people with children, who just love spending their money in local small retail units buy these houses?

This could be one of the most devastating moves by Nailsea Town Council in its entire history.

Destroying the greenbelt in the name of progress is a nonsense.

One of the reasons the greenbelt was set up was to inhibit the likes of Nailsea Town councillors panic in dealing with pressure from developers, and the need for more revenue.

North Somerset Council can stop this.

Councillor Lees comment “it’s not our idea” sounds as though they are following the developers’ pipe and as usual will be able to blame others when the damage is done.

This is going back to the planning politics of the 1970s and is an outrage.

More people buying houses to travel further to work, thus destroying the ethos of the local plan.

This is another waste of taxpayers’ money in setting experts to write the plan in the first place.

Open the local papers and look at how many properties are up for sale in Nailsea, and how many low and high priced houses are not moving. People do not spend when things get difficult, that is how they survive a recession.

Look at most town high streets and they are all suffering the same.

This is a separate issue to falls in population and is not a valid claim to build masses of new homes.

Should all town councils tear up the greenbelt to save the shops and schools?

Where is the logic in that?

Ripping the lungs out of this wonderful area is not the answer.

Please would you try to do something to stop these over-zealous town councillors destroying what most of us love about where we live and others visit to admire.

A ROWLAND

Backwell Common, Backwell