As the fifth member listed, I am responding as a humble backbencher.

When the regular Wednesday livestock market closed a decade ago, the borough council decided that something had to be done to what was a large, mainly empty space on at least five days a week and the ramshackle outbuildings and corrugated iron sheds in the centre of the principal town in western Suffolk.

Following extensive consultation, it was agreed that a new department store, additional shops, extra housing, a public hall and a below ground-level car park would be constructed on the old Cattle Market site. This is due to be completed next year.

Endless crystal-ball gazing about future trends in retailing is of some interest but none of us really knows what will happen 20 years from now. All we can say is that Bury St Edmunds is likely to continue to be a place people want to both move to and visit and that Suffolk and East Anglia in general will remain prosperous.

The borough council encourages inward investment, as this is thought to be in the best interests of the community it serves. Those who have stood for election on a no-change ticket have all been heavily defeated.

Your regular correspondent, S C Harding, has never put his name forward, presumably because he fears the outcome.

He wouldn't get my vote.

David Nettleton,
Cannon Street, Bury St Edmunds.


Mr Lacy Scott must be feeling so sad to see what has happened to our once lovely old town centre (Letters, March 7).

His family are real Suffolk country people, as is my own family.

My father, who worked for 40 years in farming, worked with his father for some years, helping at the auction sales on the Cattle Market. To be told the developers want nothing connected to farming in this area is, as Mr Scott says, preposterous.

Many people would like to know when the borough councillors were overruled in this matter. Maybe July '07? Or longer ago than that?

As for car parking, the multi-storey is never full. At least they won't need to build another one on the former Roy's site.

Sheila Rogers,
Birds Green,
Rattlesden.


No proposals on display

We have been told that the 'link' to connect the two parts of Bury St Edmunds' new shopping centre cannot be started until development of the arc has been completed and the occupiers of shops to be demolished for this have moved into their new premises.

I was disappointed last week, on visiting the exhibition of drawings and materials to be used in the enhancement of St Andrew's Street South, to find that no proposals for the link were on display, as the scheme had not yet been designed.

Another question I asked was why the enhancement proposals did not include any trees. I was told that the maze of underground drains, water pipes and cables would not permit this.

These two points taken together provide an excellent opportunity for replacement of the public toilets. A position in the link, at the junction of the widened Market Thoroughfare and St Andrew's Street with the toilet block completing the row of intended boutiques, would place it virtually in the same position as the old lavatories.

With underground services readily available there, the cost would not exceed that for the toilet block now intended to be built adjacent to Debenhams.

The latter would then no longer be required and the loss of income from one or two potential shops in the link would be a small price to pay.

The intended location for new lavatories adjacent to Debenhams is superfluous anyway, because any department store nowadays provides toilets for public use.

Reg Sharpe,
Southgate House,
Bury St Edmunds.

Brian's a web wonder

I felt I just had to write to give one lovely man the thanks he deserves. I mean, of course, Brian Cash, of Bury St Edmunds.

He travels to my home each week to teach me the wonders of making my own website. Brian is trying to teach me how to manage my own website, quite some feat you must admit, but with his patience I am getting there – and all this for no fee.

To date, Brian has made 101 websites for different people and never charged a penny.

Selina Dix,
Via email.


Plastic? Just tear it off

I sympathise with Peter Pullen's letter (Bury Free Press, March 7) regarding supermarkets putting fruit and veg in plastic bags and charging a lot more for this. But I am amazed he concentrated his complaint on the extra cost to him of the bagged products. The true cost, of course, is to the environment.

I am constantly bemused as to why cabbage, broccoli, carrots, parsnips, bananas etc have to be sold in plastic at all. Anyone knows any organic item placed in plastic doesn't last as long as one unwrapped.

I dread to think about the damage to the environment all of these millions of plastic bags are causing, in both production and disposal.

The only way to stop supermarkets from unnecessarily bagging up our fruit and veg is to tear off the plastic in the shop and leave it there.

P Harber
Hill's Farm,
Lawshall.


How would he know?

I read Mr Dunn's letter with interest (Letters, February 22). Here we have a previously elected councillor, who was in office for nine months, explaining how 'to get out of the hole it dug for itself'.

How would he know?

The only thing the ABC party has done is to cost the taxpayer a great deal of money.

Two of them have resigned, each cost somewhere in the region of £2,000 for an election.

He then mentioned the SALC peer review – cost £4,600. It has made some recommendations, but why did SALC not make the same when we first started in 2003?

All councils have problems, this is what happens. They are called debates. He blames the administration but, of course, with nine months' service, he should know that point.

We should all be aware that, in the near future, local councils will change, town and parish councils will have more power.

Councillors – or most of them – are trying to do the best they can. We are all trying to control and account for the taxpayer but, when people are elected into office, to try to destroy what happened before without planning for the future, are they worth voting for?

Without history, there is no future. The ABC party set out to do this and has failed.

As for his comment concerning 'new councillors', it was the ABC party that cancelled training for new elected members.

R J Cockle,
Waveney Road,
Bury St Edmunds.


Find cash yourselves

A veterinary centre is appealing for funds for equipment. I do not see why the profession cannot come up with the money, considering the prices it charges.

Our health centres could adopt the same strategy for the same reasons.

Roland James,
Barton Road,
Thurston.


Why bag the mag?

I have just received my free quarterly edition of Community Spirit, produced by St Edmundsbury Borough Council and delivered for the first time in a clear plastic bag. The front of the magazine promotes Zero Waste Week, with the slogan: Cut Your Carbon.

This I find strange at a time when supermarkets are being urged to reduce packaging and the use of plastic carrier bags.

I'm not sure how many copies of Community Spirit are produced, but it must be a good number.

Plastic is derived from oil, so it cannot be doing much for my carbon footprint and I cannot recycle the magazine wrapper in my blue bin as I understand plastic bags clog the sorting machine.

Perhaps the council can tell me what to do with my plastic bag?

Russell Moles,
Gibbon Close,
Bury St Edmunds.

Could you be a volunteer?

I am the community fund-raising manager for The Royal National Institute of Blind People covering the East of England area.
I am looking for volunteers to join our growing team.

Every day, more than 100 people start to lose their sight. The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) helps to rebuild lives devastated by sight loss by providing more than 60 services for people who are blind or visually impaired.

As an organisation, we rely on generous donations from the public. Much of our funding comes from our famous Sooty boxes.

In the Bury St Edmunds area, we receive fantastic support, but we have one desperate shortage – people to collect money from our Sooty sites.

If you can spare a few hours each week and like to get out to meet new people, maybe you are the person we are looking for.

Full training and ongoing support will be given and all out of pocket expenses paid.

Any readers who feel they can offer a few hours per month, to undertake this rewarding work, should contact me on 01603 262427.

Jackie Cameron,
RNIB,
Thorpe Marriott,
Norwich.

PCT should fund glasses

We were pleased to read the article 'Mum sees red as NHS denies son green specs' (Bury Free Press, February 29), which highlighted the complete refusal of the NHS to fund treatment for Irlen Syndrome.

Our daughter, Louise (eight years old), has also been diagnosed with Irlen's.

We have had to buy her glasses, prescribed by an NHS consultant, which cost us £130 as Suffolk PCT would not fund them.

The glasses have made a huge difference for Louise and her teachers are willing to testify how much they have helped her in class.

It is unjust that we have had to pay for Louise's glasses.

It was explained by the optician that if Louise was also short-sighted we would have been entitled to the coloured tint that treats Irlen's for free.

We will be campaigning further so that children can receive the treatment they need and thank the BFP for helping to make people more aware of this condition.

Sandra & Vince Webb,
(address supplied).

Not having heard of Scotopic Sensitivtiy Syndrome before November 2007, I was very surprised to find myself reading about it again some four months later in the article 'Mum sees red as NHS denies son green glasses' (Bury Free Press, February 29).

My son Alex, who will be nine years old in May, was diagnosed with the condition in November 2007.

The condition first came to light after the October half-term, when he started to complain about text appearing to be fuzzy. I took him along to the opticians (Wigram and Ware), who very efficiently diagnosed him with Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome.

Throughout the whole process, Wigram and Ware were excellent with Alex. They even managed to claw back some funding, after finding a small degree of long sightedness, which helped to reduce the bill from £235 to £189.

Even £189 was still a lot of money, but Alex needed the glasses and, regardless of the NHS not funding the new technology, he had to have them, so like Mrs Newport my husband and I met the cost.

I know the process in making the coloured lenses is very labour intensive, which is no doubt why the NHS will not provide a prescription.

As Mrs Newport says, and I whole-heartedly agree, this is unfair. We haven't stopped treating smokers or obese people on the NHS, so why is a small child to be discriminated against due to new technology costs?

Deborah Holder,
Sunshine Cottage,
Honington.

Thank you for care

I have just returned home from West Suffolk Hospital, after a short stay for surgery. I received excellent care from all the staff, the porter, cleaning lady, nurses and doctors.

The ward was clean and the food was good and more than I could eat.
Many thanks to our hospital and ward F12.

Mrs J Leighs,
Bury St Edmunds.


Collection is in storage

The very interesting article on the Hawkins clock (Bury Free Press, February 29), referred to Moyse's Hall holding the Gershom Parkington Memorial Clock Collection, but that is not correct.

When the Manor House was closed in 2006, 80 per cent of the collection was put in store for storage later at West Stow, with only 20 per cent displayed at Moyse's Hall.

The reason for the council being so anxious to sell the Manor House has never been made clear, but it is generally assumed this was to help pay for the public venue, scheduled to lose approximately £500,000 each year.

Despite a plea from Cllr Wormleighton, the vote to close the Manor House was hurried through without proper consideration for the clock collection or any of the other Manor House exhibits.

This magnificent collection, reputed to be the finest outside London, is a memorial to John Gershom Parkington, who was killed on active service. So the borough council has not only broken up a very generous gift to the town, but has also broken up a memorial to this young man.

With the gift of clocks and watches, a sum of money now worth nearly £450,000 was given by Gershom Parkington to maintain and enhance the collection – and the borough actually spent taxpayers' money to get legal advice to see if they could use the money for their own purposes.

It was only after a challenge at the council meeting, in December 2006, that it did a U-turn and then claimed it never intended to use the money for anything else.

What has saddened me is that ordinary councillors have allowed themselves to be persuaded by the cabinet and their officers to support what I believe to be the most dishonourable action by a council in Bury throughout my long life.

David J Evans,
Hardwick Lane,
Bury St Edmunds.



Well done to dog catcher

Please can we extend our thanks to whoever kindly took our escapee dog Bruno to the Moreton Hall vet practice last week.

My husband had been looking for him for over an hour, after discovering our back gate had been left open, and was beginning to wonder whether he would be found.

We really appreciate whoever it was for taking the trouble, especially as Bruno had apparently decided to roll in something particularly nasty on his adventures.

Also, thanks to Moreton Hall Veterinary Practice for cleaning him up and contacting us.

Mr and Mrs N Holding,
Raedwald Drive,
Bury St Edmunds.