This week's letter from a Marlow resident.

CAN someone in authority please, please discourage Tom Kerridge and his friends from their efforts to turn Marlow’s Higginson Park into a commercial theme park?

I have been reading in this week’s paper about the closing off of almost the entire park and river front for yet another two weeks (plus up to another two weeks for setting up and dismantling the infrastructure) so that a family of four, for example, can be charged more than £60 for the privilege of attending yet another over-priced commercial event.

Coupled with that other Kerridge moneyspinner Pub in the Park, this means that ordinary residents and visitors to Marlow are inconvenienced and deprived of access to anything other than a small area around the cricket pitch for around six weeks of the year.

The token charitable donation used to justify this commercial exploitation of a public utility is simply a minor overhead in the operator’s P&L, and the claims that these events bring money into the town are fallacious - many existing traders will tell you their takings go down, not up, when these events take place.

Higginson’s Park was purchased with public donations and dedicated for the use and enjoyment of the people of Marlow, entrusted to the council to maintain it for that purpose. It was never intended to become a cheap venue for a few businesses to exploit for their own commercial advantage.

Christmas in the Park? Bah, humbug!