As a registered charity, we are very much reliant on the generosity of local people supporting us with donations and attending our events. We are very proud of the care and comfort we are able to offer the local community, which we could not continue to do without continued local support.
Thanks are due to all of those who helped with the collection and the general public who were so generous with their donations.
Sue Long,
Community fund-raiser,
St Nicholas' Hospice Care.

CAB facing deep cuts

I IMAGINE that by now the deputy leader of St Edmundsbury Borough Council regrets his remark that the users of the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) should rather go to solicitors or accountants than to the CAB (at a cost, I dare say, of anything between £70 and £150 an hour).
His comment is akin to the one attributed to Marie Antoinette – when told that the peasants had no bread to eat, she riposted: "Why do they not eat cake?"
Our CAB now seems to face a financial crisis because the county council has found a cunning way to increase funding to some while cutting back on others, using population figures as a yard stick, so stabilising its budget overal.
A severe cut in funding may well force our local CAB to adopt such deep cuts that it is no longer effective.
I know of one CAB in North London that is open four days a week for three or four hours a day, with a queue of 50 or more waiting outside. By no means all obtain an interview. Is this what our town and surrounding villages deserve?
John Growse,
Whiting Street,
Bury St Edmunds.

Council Tax freeze puzzle

Though in principle most welcome, Cllr Griffiths' recent announcement that St Edmundsbury's Council Tax will be frozen for next year leaves me puzzled as to how this can be achieved.
Capital expenditure for the Public Service Village (including, apparently, the total renewal of the council's 'insufficiently posh' office furniture), plus the Haverhill multiplex cinema, plus the continuing soaring costs of the Venue, will have totalled tens of millions of pounds, thus greatly reducing the council's capital base – and the latter, in turn, will by now have shrunk further still following the effects of the current economic downturn on share prices.
Over and above this, there have been very severe reductions in dividends and interest rates. One would suppose that the total effect of all this on the council's income for 2009 would be both drastic and extremely worrying.
In previous years, when the council's financial base was much stronger and interest rates much higher, there have been regular increases in Council Tax. How can it be that now, when that base is so much weaker, Council Tax will remain at 2008 levels? Would Cllr Griffiths please very kindly explain?
Anthony Platt,
Westgate Street,
Bury St Edmunds.

Not everyone was consulted

The responses to my letter, published on December 12, from Cllr Rout and Roderick Sprake, chairman of the Churchgate Area Association, made interesting reading. I was reminded of the well-known phrase about statistics popularised by Mark Twain.
Suffice to say that the consultation process mentioned by Cllr Rout, undertaken on behalf of the Licensing and Regulatory Committee for St Edmundsbury Borough Council, only included premises in Bury St Edmunds which hold a licence (including those outside the area affected, thus unaffected, which might explain their low response rate), respondents to a previous call for evidence, such as Churchgate Area Association, and Bury St Edmunds Town Council, not all 800 business or residential properties in the area.
As to the survey undertaken by Churchgate Area Association, in relation to residents' concerns Mr Sprake states in his letter (December 19): "We would like to make the point that there is not one reference to the special area policy on either the questionnaire or any of the responses."
This may be so. However, I have in front of me a copy of the responses collated by the association.
The headings are: Date received; Support for special area policy y/n; Summary of comments: issues referred to; Problems associated with particular premises.
One respondent whose name has been attributed to supporting the special area policy most certainly did not.
Amanda Skull,
Whiting Street,
Bury St Edmunds.

Thank you

The family of Victor Smith would like to express our heartfelt thanks for all the people who helped our father when he had a nasty fall in Risbygate Street, Bury, on the morning of December 5.
We are glad to say that he is on the road to recovery.
The Smith and Waters family.