Here are the letters from the Lynn News of Friday, June 21, 2024…
Candidate says megafarm should be turned down
During the course of this election campaign, I have received many emails and messages about the proposed megafarm at Methwold. Back in March 2024 I was pleased to attend the public meeting held in Northwold on the subject and have followed the work of the Cranswick Objection Group intently since and I applaud their efforts.
I have been clear with all who have contacted me, and I would like to confirm here - I am against this proposal.
In my view, it is bad for the environment, bad for animal welfare and bad for local residents.
Should I be successfully elected as the next Member of Parliament for South West Norfolk I will actively object to this application and type of farming.
We should be supporting local farmers, improving animal welfare and preserving our environment. This 'megafarm' approach achieves none of that and should be rejected.
Terry Jermy
Labour Candidate - South West Norfolk
She has made a real ‘pig’s ear’ of it with comments
Lynn News has given front page headlines to the proposed pig farm site at Methwold and Feltwell.
This is a very contentious issue and has the potential to decimate a West Norfolk village.
My rival correspondent in Viewpoint Steve Mackinder gave an edifying account of life living next to one of these pungent farms, based on his dreadful experiences, and on this subject, we are at one.
Elizabeth Truss gave us an insight into one of her misjudgements with an intransigent response in all its incongruity and in the process staggering constituents with inopportune timing and all its electoral suicide, having the effect of being the centre of attention on her own patch for the wrong reasons.
Ms Truss said she "would be very happy to live next to a pig farm" which was bizarre at best and unintelligible at worst.
Is her statement believable or unbelievable? By this action, she made a 'pig's ear of it!
The analogy I can come up with is an MP in surgery listening to a complaint from a constituent about anti-social neighbours and being told: “I could live at your address.”
Socially the Rt Hon lady committed a faux pas and politically, presented a musical CD to the ears of her election opponents.
The Lynn News throughout the General Election continues with its stance of political neutrality, but it has a duty to report on local issues with veracity, yet cannot avoid her role in this salient matter. When Liz loses votes the Lynn News is not to blame, only herself.
David Fleming
Downham
They know what’s coming if the school dies
Anyone who's ever lived in a village threatened with the closure of their local primary school will have every sympathy for the people of Middleton who now suspect their little children will fall victim to the callous 'bean counters' who control education budgets in the county. Years ago, my first home in the village of Boughton had a tiny school by the pond which our daughter and her friends all attended.
The happy walk to school took five minutes unless the ducks on the pond diverted the children or someone had bread for them.
Parents dodged into the village shop beside the school for papers and provisions and community gossip was shared.
After school, the walk was reversed and once the swings and slide had been visited it was home for tea. Then the subversive bean counters turned up and announced the school was 'unsustainable' and all our offspring would be shunted by bus to the new school in the next village.
After a corrosive legal scrap with County Hall, Boughton lost its fight, the school closed and subsequently, the shop folded too, many parents deliberately shunned the school imposed upon them and took their children to other schools in all corners of the locality in protest.
The 'community' feel of the village dipped as Boughton became basically a dormitory without the hubbub and draw of the village school and shop and subsequently, we didn't attract newcomers with little children... just oldies!
Middleton Parish Council knows what's coming if the school dies... the heart and soul of the village will die too.
I've seen it... if only you had a blasted railway line near you.
Here in Downham you can't breathe for construction dust, trucks, temporary traffic lights and street chaos thanks to the suicidal building epidemic which apparently is driven by our railway line to London.
Even with all this awful housing explosion they're still not making enough school places for our youth.
The social and cultural needs of our communities and their cohesion is something Tory county planners pay absolutely zero regard to and while we wait for decisions on another 70,000 new houses across Norfolk I wonder how many more small villages will be sacrificed to 'progress', 'sustainability' and 'efficiency'... imagine what West Norfolk's going to look like in another 20 years if we keep trusting those aloof and patronising bigwigs to make our decisions for us and watching them fail. Alistair Beales has a lot hanging round his neck as the latest leader of West Norfolk Council and he's ultimately going to find out that with power comes responsibility... and a place in history. What's the plan for Middleton school Mr Beales... or Downham schools for that matter?
Steve Mackinder
Denver
Help make end of life care priority
With the General Election just a matter of weeks away, I am writing to plead with your readers to join me and Sue Ryder in speaking up for people who are dying or grieving by calling on our future government to make end-of-life care and bereavement support a priority.
Sue Ryder Thorpe Hall Hospice in Peterborough was there for my mum and words will not encompass what the care provided meant to mum and to us as her family.
Once mum was transferred to the hospice, I truly felt like a weight had been lifted and I was able to just be her daughter again, rather than her carer.
But these life-changing services don’t have enough funding from the government.
I hope by sharing these words I can show your readers how palliative care helps people to live well; giving them a better quality of life and managing their pain, symptoms, and emotional distress.
With hospices on average only receiving a third of the funding they need from government, they rely on raising money through fundraising and donations to cover the rest. Hospice funding must be addressed over the next Parliament. Unless the funding changes, hospices will remain under threat and more and more people will miss out on the care they need.
Emma Rayner
via email