Viewpoint: A car park 15 minutes away isn't 'close'

Car parks 15 minutes away are not ‘close’

Surely any shopping centre must be near car parks.

Or another way round, if you build a new shopping centre, make sure there is a good car park very nearby!

Nobody wishes to carry their shopping for 15 minutes to their car.

Fifteen minutes equates to about 3/4 of a mile, which I would define as not close to a shopping centre.

Also there are currently several temporary surface car parks (such as the one next to the Grove Road car park and the Old Desborough Bowling Club car park and the car park opposite the railway station) where – when flats or offices are built – will move currently parked cars to multi-storey car parks.

Plus where there is insufficient parking of car parking allocated to new buildings, cars will be parked in multi-storeys.

The arguments for only allowing 120 shoppers to park their cars are deeply flawed, especially when it replaces a car park which had many more car parking spaces.

We are looking for buildings for the future of this town.

We do not want to be in a position where people say ‘not going to Maidenhead, too difficult to park’.

BRUCE ADAMS

Cox Green Lane

Maidenhead

Licensing process is not transparent enough

I would like to associate myself with the comments of Owen Meredith, CEO of the News Media Association in last week’s Viewpoint (October 31). Whilst a strong advocate of local papers I am also particularly concerned at the proposed removal of the publishing of licenses in local papers – as he describes, a petty proposal.

The licensing application process is currently not transparent enough.

You may be surprised that your statutory representatives, parish councillors, aren’t consulted.

Perhaps you are shocked that a license for outdoor music to 11pm, 365 days a year, with no public health safeguarding requirement for hearing protection nor condition for on-site sound, with the removal of a prior licensing condition requiring interaction with the public, was approved, without any public scrutiny, not least because the application wasn’t easily made known.

I have represented this issue strongly, including making a long response to RBWM’s licensing statement consultation.

Given the lack of public response to that, it’s unlikely that the national consultation of 60 oblique questions will gain much input, but I encourage it.

In any event does it really cost that much for a online notice in the paper?

No Googling or navigating complex government and authority websites.

A coffee and a read are all it takes.

Let’s agree it should be a local policy even if not national to publish license applications.

I wouldn’t have known Owen’s views or be able to generate awareness of this issue if we hadn’t got the Maidenhead Advertiser.

If we don’t use it, we will lose it.

PAUL STRZELECKI

Berries Road

Cookham

Proposal would curtail citizens’ right to know

I was glad to see last week's (October 31) eye-catching slip cover.

I had read a short letter from News Media Association in my daily newspaper the day before and noted that one of the signatories was Jeremy Spooner of Baylis Media.

Thank you for printing the full letter by Owen Meredith that sets out the complete position concerning the Government's intention to remove publication of alcohol licensing notices and those to do with changes to local authority governance arrangements.

It is yet another prospective curtailment of the freedom of the citizen to know what is going on and smacks of authoritarianism at the very least.

DIANE HAYES

Hearne Drive

Holyport

Time to tax obscene football transfer fees?

How many times since July 2024 have we heard Labour politicians speak of the hard decisions that they have had to take?

With carbon dioxide targets to meet, they could have decided to increase – after how many years now? – the road fuel duty; but chose to increase by 50 per cent the flat-rate bus fare scheme cap, paid twice a day by minimum-wage workers travelling to and from work.

Elected on a manifesto of ‘Change’, Labour has slavishly followed the existing mantra of obsessing over illegal immigration (which they have little chance of stemming any time soon), rather than tackling legal migration – which dwarfs illegal immigration in its numbers.

Disregarding the fact that there are literally thousands of young men in this country who would be delighted to undertake the work, Labour has continued to allow professional football clubs across the country to import footballers from around the globe – paying vast transfer fees.

These people add to the competition for housing, helping to make house prices even higher; while giving highly-paid jobs to overseas labour, which could have been given to people from the UK.

Regardless of the many harms which professional football clubs have caused for years, they are given carte blanche to carry on paying obscene amounts of money to young men.

Who cares about the prospects of the thousands of youngsters spat out by their football academies; rejected by the clubs, after years of interrupted schooling?

Who cares if women footballers are paid a tiny fraction of what men are paid?

Who cares if the Premier League distorts not only the football set-up in this country, but also the professional leagues in other European countries?

It was reported when the summer transfer window closed that the Premier League had paid out over three billion pounds.

I suggest that the forthcoming budget introduce a new tax on football transfer fees: starting at 60 per cent; increasing to 80 per cent; then to 100 per cent in succeeding years.

JAY FLYNN

Moneyrow Green

Holyport