Your letters...

Arrogant protest

Sir, — Ed Atkinson saying that he has “no regrets” about his actions in the Extinction Rebellion campaign (Standard, October 18) does not impress me.

Defying the law and causing so many problems for people trying to get to work, perhaps to hospital and the grind of daily commuting has no regrets for Mr Atkinson but it has plenty for other people.

There is an inherent arrogance in his actions.

Millions of people around the world are concerned and changing how they live their lives and what they buy.

Thousands of companies are greening their operations and governments are encouraging the same with the use of subsidies and support.

My family didn’t pop up to London and sit on the pavement for an hour or two, we have actually done something useful to the cause of protecting our planet, which I’ll bet Mr Atkinson hasn’t done.

We have PV solar panels (electricity) and solar thermal panels (hot water) on the roof and we drive an electric car with the electricity it uses from 100 per cent renewable sources.

Rainwater is collected from the roof to supply us with grey water and our house has extra insulation to bring it to a B rating.

We have invested in these items but I guess we could have used the money elsewhere, perhaps in a nice shiny diesel car.

As the adage goes, actions speak louder than words (or sitting on the pavement). — Yours faithfully,

Phil Perry

Elizabeth Road, Henley

We’re not all ‘crusties’

Sir, — I was slightly surprised to see two much- loved “crusties” on the front page marking their Extinction Rebellion gold awards for public disorder.

I was dismayed, however, that they disclosed their street address. Have they no regard for property prices?

I would like to assure Henley residents, incomers and, above all, high-end estate agents that there are not many “hemp-smelling bivouacs” in Queen Street. Thank you. — Yours faithfully,

Nicholas Edwards

Queen Street, Henley

Don’t jack up charges

Editor, — I was disappointed by the comments of Derek Gilbert, a long-time trustee and contractor to the Kenton, that only “friends and family” were concerned about the proposal to move Henley Children’s Theatre panto after 50 years with a dramatic increase in hire rate as well as his odd suggestion of a smaller venue, given they get the best audience numbers of any of the local groups (Standard, October 18).

Not only were there letters from punters (pretty crucial for a theatre) but from me (none of the above) who worked on programming and publicity for the theatre’s two busiest ever years.

My point was that even leaving aside the community aspect, the approach of the current chairman threatens the financial future of the Kenton.

I loved programming dozens of full house shows from Dara O’Briain and Lucy Worsley to Henley’s own Opera Prelude and Lucy Fleming but the few weekly hirers the theatre has are crucial as they provide regular income.

A whole additional week of the Kenton panto, putting pressure on a new company bedding in to replace the much-loved Immersion, with no evident audience demand for another 11 shows is, by contrast, a considerable risk.

The actors may mainly be recent graduates but their salaries and those of their off-stage colleagues will still, quite rightly, add up for an extra week.

Henley Children’s Theatre currently pays the highest rate of any hirer, even before the proposed 150 per cent increase from £3,500 to over £9,000.

So, having already lost the literary festival, which provided around a quarter of the theatre’s annual footfall, it is very hard to understand the thinking behind turning away yet more guaranteed income.

And while it seems only Henley Children’s Theatre get the 150 per cent hike, sudden rate increases of 30 to 100 per cent will surely hit local groups like the Henley Amateur Operatic and Dramatic Society and the Henley Players and prompt national companies to look elsewhere.

Charity trustees are supposed to be non-executive. It would be great for audiences, volunteers and artists alike if this situation could be restored at the Kenton so that the passionate and hard-working new general manager Max Lewendel can have a chance of replicating the unprecedented success enjoyed by his predecessor Paula Price-Davies. — Yours faithfully,

Tom Ryan

River Terrace, Henley

Our children loved panto

Editor, — We were shocked to learn that the Henley Children’s Theatre is unable to afford the rental now being demanded by the Kenton Theatre for its annual pantomime in the week after Christmas.

Our two daughters are among dozens of children who, over many years, have benefited hugely from being part of the group.

Our girls began at the age of three and continued until they became helpers when they were about 17 or 18.

This gave them such a wonderful and happy experience, through which they gained confidence in performing as well as learning to work as part of a team, consideration for others and shared joy and, of course, a love of the theatre.

The children involved are local and perform for the local community as well as their families and friends.

Surely a local theatre should be supporting this wonderful institution? — Yours faithfully,

Fiona Blyth and Richard Apley

Moulsford

Trustees do great job

Sir, — I wholeheartedly agree with those correspondents supporting the Kenton. I was very disappointed to see your continued commentary over the last few weeks around what is essentially a commercial conversation between the Kenton Theatre and the Henley Children’s Theatre.

Although both organisations are admirable causes, I feel that your articles reflected badly on the team of volunteers at the Kenton that generously give up their time to help keep such a cherished asset in our town and that this was really unfair.

It’s clear the trustees are putting in a lot of effort to offer a compromise.

And what a hugely difficult position for them to have to shoulder this type of criticism in such an open format, for carrying out a core voluntary role in our town.

It’s completely understandable that they need to extend the existing commercial pantomine, which brings in the majority of the money to keep the theatre going, and how fantastic that they have managed to drive such support for this. As the Henley Children’s Theatre is a commercial organisation, I personally feel it’s only fair that it should pay its way and that the theatre, a charity, isn’t asked to subsidise it to such an extent.

I want to say a big thank-you to all the Kenton Theatre team for giving up their time to help keep what is much of the soul of Henley in the town.

I hope very much that the children’s pantomine can continue but I believe it would have more of my support if it had respected those doing a great job in our town for the benefit of others. — Yours faithfully,

Selina Craig

Gravel Hill, Henley

Monstrous proposal

Sir, — Last week, Bidwells, a property consultancy, unveiled plans to create an Olympics-style delivery body to support the Oxford-Cambridge Arc.

The proposal was supported by 25 developers and property investors and is yet another troubling sign of central powers and big business riding roughshod over local democracy.

Bidwells and its supporters hail the potential of the Arc to “regenerate” areas between Oxford and Cambridge, provide much-needed affordable housing and stimulate economic growth in the wake of Brexit.

However, the Arc, featuring a new rail line, a car expressway and one million new homes, would lead to the permanent loss of some 67,000 acres of greenfield farmland and woodland and would, according to the Campaign to Protect Rural England, alter the face of the countryside forever.

To describe this sort of ecological devastation as “regeneration” is Orwellian in the extreme.

The seductive lie at the heart of the Arc is that the building of one million new homes will help ease the crisis of housing unaffordability in the region.

It is beyond dispute that there is a chronic lack of truly affordable housing across the UK and in the South East in particular.

However, every year since 1996, England has been consistently building more homes than it needs such that we now have a housing surplus of 1.1 million homes.

And yet, over the same period, house prices have risen 160 per cent and home ownership is at its lowest level for generations.

The cause of the crisis of affordability, as identified this year by the Bank of England and the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence, is not a lack of housing supply but rather, monetary easing. It is the use of housing as a relatively high-yielding investment asset in a low-interest environment.

The only people to have benefited from this situation are the housebuilders and property speculators who have snapped up new homes for the private rental market.

The affordability test, which requires affordable housing to cost 80 per cent of market value, is meaningless in the South East anyway. Affordability should be linked with average wages in an area.

Supporters of the Arc insist the proposal will have “significant knock-on effects” for the rest of the UK economy but fail to demonstrate exactly how these will happen.

Regional inequality in the UK is as bad as that between East and West Germany at the start of the Nineties and among the worst in Europe.

The Arc will do nothing to address the deep-rooted regional inequalities in the UK and will probably exacerbate them.

Adding more investment and housing to an already over-heated, inflated and water-stressed South East is misguided and depressingly unimaginative.

When Bidwells and its developer supporters say they want to “stop the development deadlock,” what they really mean is they want to bulldoze through the pesky local authorities and lay waste an area of open countryside and woodland the size of Birmingham.

They want to sweep aside the environmental groups and those demanding genuinely affordable housing, who would stand in their way.

They plan to ignore those who want to see urgent action to address chronic regional inequality in the UK.

We do not need one million homes between Oxford and Cambridge, nor do the universities. We do not need to “regenerate” 67,000 acres of greenfield countryside by concreting over them.

We need genuinely affordable homes and social housing. We need sustainable communities and sustainable transport. We need a more balanced UK economy.

None of these aims will be achieved with the monstrous Arc, though it will make a hell of a lot of money for the property developers and builders. — Yours faithfully,

Councillor Jo Robb

South Oxfordshire District Council, Shepherds Green

They should know better

Editor, — I write regarding your story about the ramblers being terrified about a shoot (Standard, October 11), which incensed me.

My guess is that they are the sort of people that park in a local pub and book a table for 12 people after their walk, promising they will eat in return for free parking, then complete their walk after sitting in the bluebells eating their lunch, knowing they will more than likely have a glass of water or small snack when returning to the pub, if they stay at all.

If they do not like the way or support the way of the country then don’t visit it and expect to not bump into the normal country way of life. If a pheasant had fallen down near them, perhaps (if they’re not vegetarians) they could’ve asked to keep it for their own larder instead of rudely demanding that they pass through. — Yours faithfully,

Stef Garland

Sonning Common

Doing the right thing

Sir, — We now know that being dead in a ditch must not be all that bad as Big Boris took the apparently relativey worse option of sending the letter to Brussels and he is still okay and keen to press on with his career.

At the time of writing he should be 90 days into his premiership. Maybe even if one is dead in a ditch it is even easier to resurrect oneself and keep going.

It was interesting to hear Ken Clarke on Saturday admit that a bad deal was really better than no deal. Another interesting reversal of the Tories’ position.

Theresa May, sitting next to him on the green benches in Parliament, must have deeply felt the pathos in Mr Clarke’s statement. I wonder if she regrets this statement as much as her other meaningless epigram, “Brexit means Brexit”.

According to the Washington Post, Donald Trump has made 12,019 false or misleading statements since he took office.

I have no idea as to how anyone could have any confidence in such a number but I wonder if anyone in the UK has made an effort to keep count of the number of false or misleading statements we have been told by Brexiteers in the past three-and-a-half years.

In years to come some academic will no doubt write an article or even a book entitled Who were the most skilled at terminological inexactitudes and circumlocutions, Trump Inc or Brexit plc?

In the meantime, we wait for the next cunning plan to get Brexit done.

It is a pity that Brexit fatigue has sparked the call to “just get it done” rather than “for goodness sake, do the right thing for the country as a whole”. — Yours faithfully,

Dan Remenyi

Kidmore End

Far-reaching Brexit effect

Sir, — I am saddened that arguments for Brexit are not based on specific tangible benefits but catchphrases bearing at best a loose relationship to the truth. To name a few...

“Just get it done”: Any withdrawal agreement is only about the terms on which we leave. There will be many, many more years of negotiating once we leave with or without a deal and Britain will be in a much weaker negotiation position than it is now as a member of the EU.

That is many more years where time and resources, which could be spent on health, education and social care among other things, will be further sucked into negotiations and preparations to try to replace trade and a multitude of other arrangements from which we currently benefit.

“Take back control”: Impossible as we never gave it up. Ninety-nine per cent of UK public expenditure is controlled by the Government, which shapes all major political policy.

“The will of the people”: Out of 46.5 million registered voters, 17.4 million people voted for the abstract idea of Brexit, while 16.1 million people voted to remain.

There was, and is, no consensus among people who support Brexit what form this should take. The available deal is significantly different from the promises made by the Leave campaign in 2016 and a considerable number of people who voted for Brexit have since changed their minds.

Voters were asked their opinion based on their understanding of circumstances at a particular point in time. If voters cannot change their minds, we are in stark danger of no longer being a democracy.

The arguments for and against Brexit are complex and far-reaching and while a longing for clarity and resolution is understandable, our current Government does us a grave disservice by pretending otherwise. — Yours faithfully,

Stephanie Wheeler

Western Road, Henley

MP ignoring our opinions

Sir, — How many of your readers are aware of the voting record of our MP, John Howell (available at TheyWorkForYou.com)?

He consistently votes along his party’s line and has supported dramatic cuts to education, health services and the police.

He even voted to keep the Government’s documents on Windrush secret.

At the weekend he voted against allowing time for scrutiny of a Brexit Bill.

It beggars belief that MPs should even be asked to sign off a legal document that they hadn’t seen and doubly so given the enormous significance of Brexit to all of us.

I believe Mr Howell takes no notice of his constituents’ views and rides roughshod over popular opinion in the area. Such is the luxury of a safe seat.

I do hope that even lifelong Conservative voters remember this at the forthcoming general election as if they do then his seat won’t be as safe as he thinks. — Yours faithfully,

Paul Jenkins

South Stoke

Union flag conundrum

Sir, — I have a conundrum. With the countries of the United Kingdom being no longer of like mind and our joint parliament not representing the wishes of the democratic view of all its peoples, when I remove the Union flag from its flagpole outside my dwelling do I place “her” in the green recycling bin or the black landfill bin?

She will, of course, be replaced by the English flag of St George under which my ancestors fought and died for millennia under the anthem of Edward Elgar’s Land of Hope and Glory. — Yours faithfully,

Dirk Jones

Kennylands Road, Sonning Common

Brexit will break Britain

Sir, — Stop Brexit as it will break Britain. Europe is our neighbour. — Yours faithfully,

Neil Parsley

Mount View, Henley

Jeweller who truly shines..

Sir, — Thank you for your Let’s Get Down To Business column featuring David Rodger Sharp who opened a jewellery shop in Henley after a very chequered past (Standard, October 18).

We recently celebrated our emerald (55th) wedding anniversary and purchased a lovely emerald ring from his shop. He gave careful and friendly service.

We hope to return in the future and wish David every success. — Yours faithfully,

Dorothy and Vincent West

Tilehurst, Reading

..and another we’ll miss

Sir, — I have just learned with dismay that DJ King, a truly old-fashioned family jeweller in Bell Street, Henley, owned by Samuel Buckett, will be closing its doors at the end of next month.

I was alerted to Samuel’s expertise with timepieces when he sorted out my partner’s Tagg watch.

It cost more than £2,000 and was supposed to be water-proof up to a depth of 20m. Tagg wanted £250 just to look at it

I was chatting to Samuel about it when I popped in to get my battery changed and he said he would have a look at it.

It turned out to be something very simple — the time-changing winder had not been pushed back in firmly enough, thereby not completing the seal.

It took him 10 minutes to do and cost me £10 and the watch has been perfect ever since.

I am told by Samuel that his email address will still be active after the end of November so those of you who like to get your clocks and watches sorted out can still get in touch at D.J.King-Jewellers@outlook.com 

So sad to see him go. — Yours faithfully,

Julie Huntington

Fair Mile, Henley

Thank you for support

Sir, — Despite bad weather and ground conditions, hundreds of runners took part in the Henley half marathon and 10km runs.

The Rotary Clubs of Henley thank them very much for their participation, enabling the clubs to help local and national charities.

Already the clubs are purchasing a BMW motorcycle for the Oxon, Bucks, Berks and Northants branch of Service by Emergency Rider Volunteers, better known as “Blood Bikes”.

SERV are on call every night and weekends to transport vital blood and other medical supplies, resulting in the saving of many lives. A “Blood Bike” was exhibited at the event.

This annual event has been organised since 2003 by the Rotary Club of Henley Bridge but this year Henley Rotary Club became a joint partner in organisng it.

The clubs thank our major sponsor, Invesco, and all organisations and individuals who helped make the event possible, including the patience of those affected by the necessary short road closure.

The Henley army and air cadets performed important marshalling functions and were a credit to their units.

In wet conditions, they remained very smart and cheerful and gave much encouragement to tired runners. — Your faithfully,

Malcolm Leonard, president, Rotary Club of Henley Bridge, and Barry Prior, president, Henley Rotary Club

How does thief feel?

If you saw someone go up to a homeless person begging in the street and go through their pockets or take their cash, how would you feel about it?

That’s probably a bit like the congregation of St Botolph’s Church in Swyncombe must have felt when the wall-mounted donations box was broken into recently and the offerings of many kind people were stolen. It’s not known how much was in there.

Fifty years ago who would have done such a thing? Have some people stooped so low to steal from a charity which depends on its existence entirely upon the monies it has received from well-wishers?

The Church — meaning the entire organisation — is quite well off but that doesn’t filter down much to the local level.

Many of our parish churches are in a difficult financial state, often with diminishing congregations, and they try to give as much as they can to local charities and good causes as a part of their ethos.

St Botolph’s has to raise more than £16,000 a year to support the diocese and its work and regularly gives to local charities.

Then it stumps up for electricity etc. The oldest public building in almost any parish needs loads of TLC to keep it open for everyone, including burglars.

But this theft brings a whole new meaning to the “hole in the wall”, doesn’t it?

I wonder how a thief really feels? — Yours faithfully,

John Sennett

Church volunteer, Pyrton Lane, Watlington