Chester Chronicle letters

Oct 15 2004

MY COLLEAGUE Shirley Harris's head to head with Councillor Musgrave in The Chronicle on September 29 was a good bit of knock-about. But I sadly fear that it is time to get serious about this matter of local government in Cheshire.

Deadly serious, in fact, because what is at stake here isn't the ambitions or survival of small councils or the careers of local politicians - it is the council tax bills of Cheshire people and the amount of money available to put into services like schools, roads and social care.

It is highly irresponsible of the leader of Vale Royal Borough Council, Cllr Musgrave, to talk about Mills and Boon fictitious cost models - especially as he has done no costings himself for his scheme to split Cheshire up into three bits.

This would cost at least £40 million - all to be taken out of service budgets or found by the taxpayer.

These are not Cheshire's costs - they are the national model being used by the Local Government Association and now the Government who have just said they got their original costs wrong and are sending out a letter to 220,000 people in the North East to tell people so.

How can this ruinously expensive and daft idea to carve Cheshire up into three miserable strips be described as 'the only way forward for local democracy'?

Come on now, Cllr Musgrave - let us start putting the taxpayers first and give them the facts, not a smokescreen.
G A COUSINS, Alderhall, Burrows Lane, Foxhill, Frodsham.

I HOPE a reader may be able to help. On Saturday, October 2, I attended the Chester City v Swansea game but was unable to buy a programme.

I am trying to visit all 92 league grounds and the programme is my memento. If a reader has a spare I would be please to pay costs, including postage.
HENRY HANNON, Montrose Drive, Warmley, Bristol.

AS A resident of Cheyney Road, I have followed with interest the issues raised by the Canal Basin Forum regarding student parking within the college area.

Despite assurances from the college and the council that all is being done to alleviate this problem, there is no improvement - in fact, the situation is now much worse.

Most of the properties in the area are multi-occupancy, the majority being accommodated by students. Some properties have been extended, ie in the attic - enabling landlords to house even more people.

The level of parking caused by this influx is causing serious concern to those residents who are having difficulty parking within easy access to their homes and those with garages having problems accessing their drive because of cars parked close to the entrance and opposite.

Chester is one of the highest-paying Council Tax areas and each time this is increased we are told of how much it costs for education, policing, environment, etc.

Yet, what is not widely broadcast is that on these properties housing full-time students, landlords, who can make a tidy profit on these properties, do not pay Council Tax.

We apparently have no redress when we raise concerns regarding the problems - socially and environmentally - emanating from this situation. It is hoped that, sooner rather than later, Chester City Council and Chester College can meet the landlords and arrive at a solution satisfactory to the Council Tax-payers of the college area.
EP BLEARS Cheyney Road, Chester

CITY residents view with immense concern the plans of the West Cheshire College to relocate to the Northgate area.

The principal, Sara Mogul, has said that the city centre site is perfect, but people living in the vicinity see it as a potential disaster.

Many already despair at parking problems caused by the nearby University College. Although it has several hundred car parking spaces, these are quite inadequate to meet the term-time demand for spaces.

Roads adjacent to the University College become blocked by parked cars, leaving local residents with nowhere to park.

The addition of a second college, mostly for day-students, seems likely to make the situation even worse.

There is an additional problem of the potential increase in traffic into an area that is already heavily congested.

West Cheshire College will produce a 'green travel scheme'. This will need to be examined closely by the council before planning approval could be given.

It is hard to imagine any plan that would prevent some potential West Cheshire College students from driving into Chester and scouring residential roads for parking spaces.

These problems could be avoided if the site were allocated to some use that provided its own parking space and did not generate the need for extra parking space and a considerable increase in traffic volume.
CLLR DAVID MEAD, College ward, Kilmorey Park Avenue, Chester

I'D LIKE to say to this to councillors - Chester becoming a university city is not a good thing!

To place their new building alongside the Northgate Arena is sheer madness.

I have lived next door to students, it was a living hell. The only thing that distinguishes students from other yobbos is their so-called 'intelligence', but they still suffer from all the other 'yobbish' behaviour - drunkenness, vomiting and urinating on other people's steps, etc.

God help the city-dwellers like myself. I just hope I don't get any students living next door to me again.
WORRIED CESTRIAN

I WOULD like to know from Cheshire Police if the ban on using mobile phones while driving does not apply in the county of Cheshire?

I work on highway maintenance and am appalled at the amount of drivers, especially HGV drivers, ignoring the law, some even drinking and using the phone simultaneously.

I fear it will not be long before someone doing the work that I do will be killed or seriously injured by a driver using a mobile phone.
CONCERNED HIGHWAYS WORKER Name and address supplied