Viewpoint: Make your voice heard on car noise nuisance

Make your voice heard about noise nuisance

There was an interesting letter last week (Viewpoint, May16) from an unfortunate resident who lives along the A4 in Maidenhead, regarding excessively noisy exhausts.

We don’t live anywhere near the A4, although my wife has particularly acute hearing, so she does occasionally hear these cretins late at night.

Consequently, I’m sure huge numbers of people are sick and tired of the totally unnecessary racket they make in the early hours of the morning.

I reckon that many other areas of the country are similarly affected.

Personally, it’s not the speeding I care about, a car can go very fast without making such noise.

The writer wonders how they pass the MOT.

Well, obviously they either use a bent MOT station or, as they probably have more money than sense, they make sure their exhaust is compliant before the test and then just get it remodified afterwards.

Also, I am sure there are dodgy garages that do this exhaust ‘modification’.

Why are they not prosecuted?

And here we get into familiar territory.

It’s this strange new world where peaceful decent citizens get regularly ignored and the criminals and anti-social scum just get away with everything.

The scum regularly burgle houses, nick bicycles, make massive ‘shoplifting’ raids on small shops and rarely anything ever happens to them.

Regarding the ridiculously noisy exhaust problem, we complained to the police over a year ago about this problem.

My wife even had the registration number of one of these individuals’ cars.

What actually happened was, two officers came to our house.

We gave them times and what info we had and guess what they said to me?

Wait for it……They said: “There’s nothing we can do about it, sir.”

That’s a familiar phrase, isn’t it!

The writer says they complained to the council’s ‘environment department’, but, as usual…nothing has happened.

Maybe some of them were ‘working from home’ in Portugal or France?

However, the noise camera solution is an excellent idea, just search ‘noise pollution cameras’.

There is one caveat though, that there is the danger they may just switch to other non-noise camera protected through roads.

Really, it is the so-called police’s job to stop these people, but of course they have to stop using their mantra of ‘there’s nothing they can do about it’.

In conclusion, what IS important is that anyone being disturbed should complain strongly to the police and their local councillors.

Even do it online if necessary.

Tell the councillors about the noise pollution camera solution.

The thing is, with all their budget restraints, the authorities will only act if sufficient numbers of people complain.

NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED

Awaiting resolution for Green Way flooding

The Advertiser of May 9 in Remember When (p29) featured a photo of the mayor, Frank Robinson in 1985 leading members of Maidenhead Civic Society and East Berks Ramblers (EBRA) on a walk of the Green Way, their joint project. The photo includes several of those involved in the project including the late Peter Nevell, chair of EBRA, seen just behind the mayor.

Peter brought his Linear Park idea to the Civic Society, later re-naming it the Green Way and the Society published the first Green Way leaflet in 1985.

In 1985 there were several missing links in the route from Cookham through Maidenhead to Bray that is the Green Way, most would be filled by planning gains.

In 1989, the York Stream Action Group (now the Green Way Working Group – GWWG) was formed to resolve the problem of lack of water in the town centre.

In 1990, the route under the A4 was achieved to replace a path that was to be extinguished by development nearby.

In 2025, the route under the A4 has the opposite problem, too much water .

This section has been plagued by flooding in recent years due to the creation of the new waterway in Maidenhead.

The presence of a cable in the stream bed just north of the A4 bridge meant that the flood wall was not continued in the area of the cable and instead a brick wall was substituted in the hope that at some future date the situation could be resolved.

Leakage of water through the brick wall and up through gaps in the Green Way path itself means that a pump is needed to remove the water and the failure of the pump meant the path was continually flooded as it is today (Tuesday).

The pump that took the water away was recently connected to a new electricity supply but is not currently working due to debris in the water going through it.

Contractors for the Royal Borough are now attempting to rectify this problem.

In the meantime, the Civic Society, at the request of the Maidenhead Waterways Partnership Group, contacted the chief executive of Virgin Media O2 (VM02), who now own the cable, to find out if it is live.

Their VMO2 executive resolution specialist has been in contact, and we understand that once the path is dry, they will be able to find out: important as this will influence any future attempts to find a permanent solution to the flooding of the path.

The town centre route of the Green Way has changed radically since the last leaflet was published by the Royal Borough and other footpath diversions are planned.

The GWWG await the resolution of the flooding problem and the future diversions before publishing the new route.

ANN DARRACOTT

Maidenhead Civic Society

People to Places set to launch charity shop

The Maidenhead Advertiser kindly included a very positive article recently on the general state of People to Places (P2P).

However, I wanted to share another new chapter in P2P’s history.

On Monday, June 2, P2P will be opening a new charity shop within our Shopmobility Maidenhead office in the Nicholsons Centre.

‘Not another charity shop’ some people will cry!

However, true to our ethos of ‘Delivering Independence, Tackling Isolation’, the shop will not only offer retail therapy and some social therapy too by holding a regular roundtable conversation session for people who'd like a bit of company .

(We're aiming to emulate the excellent Talking Tables service, organised by the Maidenhead Bridge Rotary Club in the Rio Deli cafe).

Following our recent community activities, we’ve been fortunate to find many, new volunteers.

However, we’re hoping good residents of the Royal Borough will step forward again to help P2P with our shop, by donating either clothes, vinyl, bric-a-brac and toys (no electrical goods though!) or time, helping to organise the shop and talk with people.

Is P2P the only local charity that can offer the opportunity to drive a steam cleaner in the morning and a minibus in the afternoon!?!

For more information either ring 01628 587920 or email info@people2places.org.uk

PETER HALEY

CEO, People to Places

Be honest about cost of deindustrialisation

Saturday morning (May 3), and we are importing 24.4 per cent of our electricity from the continent through interconnectors, while exporting 4.2 per cent to Ireland.

Not only is this expensive, it also makes a mockery of the Government's stated plan that we should no longer be dependent on foreign powers for our energy.

I still have an open mind about ‘decarbonisation’ to try to save the planet from overheating, the new national mission that our Parliament endorsed in 2008.

But if we going to continue with the present ‘net zero’ policy its advocates should be honest about the economic cost of the consequent ‘deindustrialisation’.

As mentioned previously, for six decades prior to 2008 our trend growth rate was 2.7 per cent a year, but since then it has averaged only 1.1 per cent a year.

Some will welcome that, believing that we should go further into ‘degrowth’, but it will be difficult for the Government to meet its financial commitments.

To complete the natural alliterative progression, it would be ‘decarbonisation’, causing ‘deindustrialisation’, leading to ‘degrowth’, and finally ‘destitution’.

Or maybe it is just a coincidence that the obvious break in our economic growth rate occurred in the same year that the Climate Change Act was passed?

Dr D R COOPER

Belmont Park Avenue

Maidenhead