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Can bridge take weight?

Sir, — At about 2pm on Monday, March 7, I drove on to Fair Mile, Henley, joining a traffic queue behind an articulated heavy goods vehicle rig displaying the registration number KY21 EUU loaded with a huge metal shipping container.

Turning left into New Street, the lorry had to take a very wide arc to clear Savills’ office while also avoiding collision with Asquiths teddy bear shop.

The width of the lorry meant that it took over both lanes of New Street before taking a very wide right arc on to Riverside.

In order to take a wide left arc by the Relais Henley hotel on to Henley Bridge the lorry occupied both lanes on Riverside.

To allow the lorry room for a left arc, the lead vehicle in the queue on the bridge had to move to give clearance.

I followed the lorry as far as the Burchetts Green roundabout where it turned off left towards the Marlow bypass.

This articulated lorry was fitted with 14 wheels (six on the trailer). Its load occupied the whole length of the trailer.

Stamped on the container were the words “Gross weight 67,200kg” (about 68 tons). Add to this the weight of the tractor/trailer unit, which might be 10 tons, and the total weight would be 78 tons.

Proceeding along the route to Burchetts Green, I noted a similar HGV heading in the opposite direction towards Henley.

It is possible that two similar HGVs might cross Henley Bridge at the same time. The load for both vehicles on Henley Bridge could amount to 156 tons.

In addition, if there was at the same time a typical bridge queue of, say, a dozen 1.5-ton cars, the load could be as much as 174 tons.

This matter might be brought to the attention of Oxfordshire County Council in seeking assurances that Henley Bridge is safe and secure for this kind of event.

The ancient signs at Henley Bridge read: “Only one horse-drawn vehicle at any time on the bridge.”

Some local elections ago, in his pre-election statement, then county councillor David Nimmo Smith declared his support for a “rat-run” lorry ban.

Has a recent technical assessment of Henley Bridge’s strength been made to ensure its safety and security?

The signs by Hammersmith Bridge, which has been closed for some years, read, “Hammersmith Bridge closed. Please seek alternative route”. — Yours faithfully,

Tony Lawson-Smith

Fair Mile, Henley

P.S. At lunchtime on Tuesday last week, having driven from Nettlebed towards Henley and passing the bodies of deer, badgers and pheasants etc, I joined the left-hand eastbound side of the dual carriageway in the slow lane just past the Bix left turn near the derestriction sign.

A transit-type white van with blue signage overtook me and pulled quickly in front quickly followed by a white BMW two-door coupé fitted with a noisy exhaust. A split second later a dark purple saloon passed all three of us on the wrong side of the dual carriageway in the opposite direction at very high speed.

Did anyone else encounter this speeder who can’t read road signs? This car may have been a Peugeot.

We were all within a split second of a four-car head-on crash.

So much for law and order

With reference to your front page story about the police response to the theft of alcohol from Henley Wines by a gang of youngsters (Standard, March 18), dear, oh dear.

Back in 1976, David Holdsworth, the then chief constable of the Thames Valley, gave me a job to do at Henley, saying “Henley is the jewel of the Thames Valley. When law and order breaks down at Henley, we might as well all go home.”

Are the upholders of law now also WFH?

Mind how you go. — Yours faithfully,

Roy Strickland

Detective constable 1966 to 1969, Inspector in charge 1976 to 1983, Twyford

Roads need resurfacing

Sir, — Council tax demands for 2022-2023 received recently were accompanied by an eight-page booklet from Oxfordshire County Council.

On page 4, headed “working for you”, we are told that our council is proud to look after 850 children in care and several other worthy aspects of “a huge range of services” which include the repair of 34,750 potholes.

I would be much happier if the council could claim to have resurfaced our roads, such as the B481, which is in a disgraceful state so that there were no potholes to repair. — Yours faithfully,

K B Atkinson

Red House Drive, Sonning Common

Do we need to change?

Sir, — Now that the infamous wheel has trundled away and the “temporary” pedestrianisation of Henley market place has been parked, would a moment of calm reflection be in order?

Proponents of change for our town seem to always use emotive adjectives for change like “dynamic” and “vibrant”.

Then there’s the lighting of the bridge, described by some as, presumably virtuous, LED and by others as “fairy” lights.

Appropriate? Quite how or why this should attract more visitors remains a mystery. Otherwise, without change, we are purportedly consigned as a town to atrophy. Who says?

There’s an aphorism which may be appropriate: “If it ain’t broke, don’t try to fix it.”

Retailers will understandably promote their own interests to maximise footfall.

Perhaps the rest of us who pay the council tax — and we may just be in the majority — should be asked the question: Are you in favour of encouraging even more visitors to the town bearing in mind the parking and pollution problems we already have?

Is that a loaded question? Is it dissimilar from asking retailers if they’d like more customers?

Maybe, just maybe, the majority of residents would say that they were quite happy with the town the way it is.

It does seem to score rather highly on polls of where people would like to live. — Yours faithfully,

Richard Jones

Reading Road, Henley

Benefits of walking

Sir, — I was surprised to read Councillor Ken Arlett’s comments concerning walking (Standard, March 18).

He stated that he does not think the council should “pay for people to walk” and that he doesn’t “need to be sponsored to walk to the ‘top shops’”. Of course, this is not the main purpose of Walkers are Welcome which would appreciate some financial assistance in order to get more people to visit Henley for the purpose of walking in our beautiful countryside as well as, as Stefan Gawryrsiak pointed out, contribute to the Henley economy.

Any such monies received by our group would help in this aim and be no more help, Ken, in walking to the top shops than the grant to Henley Choral Society would assist anyone with singing in their bath!

I would also point out to Councillor Lorraine Hillier that, in addition to the benefits I have mentioned above, while walking may be a hobby for some (in fact quite a lot of people), it is something which is encouraged by the NHS and the Government to promote a healthy lifestyle.

Walkers are Welcome does therefore support the aim of trying to get more people to walk to the town (and the top shops) in order to improve their health and also reduce pollution from car usage.

Regarding the support of pubs for our group, many of them have joined as business partners but we have not thought it advisable to ask them for money over the last two years due to the dire state of the leisure industry resulting from covid.

We will soon be asking them to renew their support. — Yours faithfully,

Peter C Stone

Chair, Walkers are Welcome Henley

Not quite £2 million

Sir, — I noted with concern your report about the grants approved to community groups by Henley Town Council (Standard, March 18).

The article included a statement made by a councillor at the council’s finance committee meeting that Henley Baptist Church (at the d:two centre) “have got just shy of £2 million”.

That would be great news for us but, sadly, 97.5 per cent of that figure is taken up by the insurance value of our building and land in Market Place, which is held in trust and we have no access to it.

So we are not quite as flush as the report mentioned and do not want your readers to get the wrong impression.

While we have been extremely grateful over the years for local councillors’ support for our family centre and Nomad work, the d:two centre, which includes a community café, soft play centre, the Henley food bank and Nomad, operates through the generosity of a range of donors and local people to provide a resource for the whole community.

In particular, church members have invested hundreds of thousands of pounds in its refurbishment and ongoing maintenance, contrary to the councillor’s statement that, “it’s time the church paid for this themselves”.

On this occasion our grant application was turned down, which we fully accept as there are many other local charities that need the council’s support.

But we will continue to work with our community to make Henley an even better place to live, even though we are not millionaires. — Yours faithfully,

Jeremy Bray

Team leader, Henley Baptist Church and d:two centre, Market Place, Henley

Not such a deterrent

Your correspondent Aldon Ferguson and I have irreconcilable views but I do hope that other readers are not persuaded by his arguments in favour of so-called nuclear deterrence (Standard, March 18).

It is hard to imagine that anybody who knows what nuclear weapons actually do could be so sanguine as he is.

It is simply not the case that the sole justification for the UK’s nuclear weapons programme is that it deters a nuclear attack, though he is right that this is one of the arguments made to justify them.

The wider rationale is that they have “kept the peace in Europe” since the Forties.

Both of these arguments have flaws. The reductio ad absurdum of the former argument would lead to every nation “going nuclear”.

I doubt that anybody relishes that prospect but what right do we have to tell other countries that they must not have what we have?

It strikes me, moreover, that it is an odd sort of weapon that depends for its usefulness on another country also having it.

As for nuclear weapons keeping Europe peaceful, this has always been a doubtful proposition and it looks especially flimsy now that we are faced with a despot who may think that he has nothing to lose by calling our bluff.

Mr Ferguson says Putin is mindful that the West would retaliate if he were to deploy one of these terrible weapons.

But we can’t know what he is thinking, or even if he is rational. Is it wise to risk our survival on guesses? It is dispiriting that Mr Ferguson sounds relaxed about the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction.

This is a misnomer if ever there was one, since in an uninhabitable world it would not only be the protagonists that would be destroyed.

Tom Lehrer was not quite right in proclaiming that, if the unthinkable comes to pass, “We will all go together when we go”. Rather, as Khrushchev supposedly said, the living will envy the dead.

Mr Ferguson may hope and believe that such a scenario never comes to pass. More cautious folk might prefer not to continue to take that chance and save the Treasury a few billion into the bargain. — Yours faithfully,

Andy Robertson

Woodcote

Get on with it, Boris

Boris Johnson’s comparison of UK voters for Brexit to that of the citizens of Ukraine fighting for their lives is an embarrassment to our nation.

This is the same Boris that 20 years ago at a National Childbirth Trust dinner at Henley town hall compared raising a toddler to that of the men fighting in the trenches during the First World War.

He certainly risked his life as he promptly departed under a barrage of bread rolls.

It would be far better if the Prime Minister banged the heads of the Home and Foreign Offices together and made them do something rather than prevaricate over process and paperwork.

Make it simple. Airlift the Ukrainian women and children immediately.

Allow each town mayor to collect and then match to UK hosts.

Follow up with the paperwork process — according to press reports it takes six hours to complete and that’s if you speak English!

If I end up hosting a nine-year-old spy I will of course notify the authorities immediately. — Yours faithfully,

Roger Heath

St Mark’s Road, Henley

France is shameful

Sir, — So when the truth rears its ugly head, it’s unsurprisingly French in appearance.

First, Michel Barnier helps to fund and equip the Wuhan laboratories that now everyone agrees were the source of the coronavirus pandemic.

Now it comes to light that between 2015 and 2020, despite an embargo, France was busy selling state-of-the-art fighter jets, computer and military hardware and night and stealth vision technology for tanks to the Russians.

They are in league with factions determined to destroy our free, democratic and, until now, relatively peaceful way of life.

I’m all for an embargo on any French access to Britain. How many times in history does the European brat need a spanking?

Its EU foster parents aren’t doing anything, so we should stop pandering and give the French a thoroughly English “six of the best”.

Stay safe and please take care of each other. — Yours faithfully,

Edward Sierpowski

Henley

Thank you for support

Sir, — What an incredible display of support for the people of Ukraine in Henley at Henley town hall on Saturday, March 12.

We wanted to publicly say a huge thank-you to everyone for turning up in their hundreds to support our #cookforukraine Henley Hawker House event that made it the success it was, along with the support and professionalism of all of our food Hawkers.

Thanks to you and all those who gave their time, expertise, food and energy. We have so far managed to raise £5,581.23 for Unicef.

So popular was the thought of eating this great food while supporting those affected by the awful events happening in Ukraine right now that we sold out in just two hours.

For everyone who came, your generosity and desire to support was immense and we took £1,000 in the first 30 minutes of opening the doors, to having a queue snaking out of the door of the main hall, down the stairs, out of the front entrance and down the steps for two hours. Incredible.

If you weren’t able to come down to support in person, you can still donate.

Henley Hawker House is fundraising for Unicef UK (justgiving.com) and we will keep the Just Giving page open to continue receiving donations.

We would like to give very public thanks to all those below who gave their time, produce and service free.

Without their support, the event wouldn’t have happened or been as amazing as it was, so thank you to: Crockers of Henley, the Henley Larder, Sonoma Solutions, Geo Café, Hotel du Vin, the Relais Henley, Sage & Squash, Pavilion Fine Foods, Makan Malaysia, HoT WI volunteers, Henley Rowing Club, Stable 34, CF Home Services, Tina Davis, Chloe Stuart-Bennett, of Rithm & Light, Atticus & Hope, Rok-Tech, the Henley Distillery, the Henley Florist, Rachael’s Larder, Bosley Patch, Tara Neil Kitchens, Auroso Chocolate, Nicola Baker Bakes, Elements Henley and Henley Town Council.

Once again, thank you. We were overwhelmed by your support. — Yours faithfully,

Philippa Ratcliffe

Experience Henley

Excellent opportunity

Sir, — I would be grateful if I could, through your paper, ask if there are any young people aged between 18 and 25 who may be interested in talking part in the Rotary Club Youth Leadership Award.

The award is a Rotary International programme for young people.

It offers a special opportunity to take part in developing qualities of leadership, team-working, initiative and problem-solving at the start of their careers.

Two days are spent team-building followed by two days learning new skills, for example, orienteering, rock climbing, abseiling, canoeing and slate mine exploration.

These skills are applied in a 30-hour group exercise in locations around the Snowdonia National Park, including a night in the open.

This develops a more complete personality and the new-found confidence and skills are brought back into the community and demonstrated to their sponsoring clubs by way of a short presentation on their experiences as a precursor to receiving a certificate.

The week-long course takes place at Rhos-y-Gwaliau, a small hamlet near Lake Bala in the Snowdonia National Park in North Wales.

The centre is staffed by a small group of dedicated and talented course leaders, professionally qualified in the specialised field of outdoor leisure pursuits.

As to the question of who is selected, the short answer is that there is no particular type of person.

Indeed, the success of the course depends on there being a good mix of both sexes of different ages (between 18 and 25), backgrounds and experience, all with leadership potential.

The course is also designed to develop the latent talents of anyone held back by lack of confidence.

Candidates must be prepared to contribute to, as well as benefit from, the course and preference will be given to those who would not otherwise get the opportunity to take part in such an award scheme. It will be an alcohol-free week.

There is no cost to the candidates selected. They are sponsored by a Rotary club.

We are looking for two candidates. It may be that there are local businesses that have a member of staff whom they would wish to nominate as part of their development training programme.

The next course will take place from July 16 to 23. You must be 18 by the first day of the course.

Anyone wishing to apply, please could they email me at mark.harling@hotmail.com with a brief explanation as to why they wish to take part and their contact details. — Yours faithfully,

Mark Harling

Henley Rotary Club

Heart in right place

Sir, — At the beginning of this month a pink skip was dropped opposite our house in Rotherfield Greys.

It was, in part, advertising potential charitable donations to Cancer Research UK.

Bizarrely, it remained empty for a couple of weeks but then predictably started to fill rapidly until it started to overflow on to the surrounding turf.

I called the skip hire firm to report the problem and, to my delight, in less than the time it takes the DVLA or HMRC not to answer the phone, the skip had been removed but the excess rubbish remained.

I feared the worst but an hour later the firm had returned and completely cleaned up the area.

Looks as though this firm has its heart in the right place. — Yours faithfully,

Paul Fairweather

Rotherfield Greys

Please join charity walk

Sir, — The Thames Path Wellness Walk 2022 will take place on Sunday, May 8.

This is a perfect opportunity to improve your fitness while enjoying a scenic walk and raising money for Diabetes UK. The 10-mile walk will start and finish at Syon Park in south-west London with groups of walkers setting off in waves from 9.30am to 11.30am.

There are an estimated 4.8 million people living in the UK with diabetes, a condition where there is too much glucose in the blood because the body cannot use it properly.

If not managed carefully, both type 1 and type 2 diabetes can lead to devastating complications, including sight loss, amputation, kidney failure and stroke. There is currently no known cure for any type of diabetes.

Demand for our services is increasing all the time. People with diabetes need our help and so we need your help. Please sign up and start walking on your own or with friends and family. Your support can change lives.

To register for the Thames Path Wellness Walk 2022, visit https://wellnesswalkthames.diabetes.org.uk — Yours faithfully,

Jill Steaton

South-East regional manager, Diabetes UK