LETTERS: 'Too many idiot drivers on our roads'

I was deeply saddened to read in last week's BFP that two cyclists, Andy Coles and Damien Natale, had died in an incident near the turning to Old Dashwood Hill off the main A40 road.

I have cycled up and down Old Dashwood Hill on many occasions. However, I travel to Old Dashwood Hill from Wheeler End and, therefore, must cycle along about 400M of the A40, before turning into Old Dashwood Hill.

I have tried cycling along the footpath, but it is in a very poor condition for both pedestrians and cyclists. This stretch of the A40 tempts drivers to drive at 60, 70 and sometimes 80mph, despite there being two turnings close by.

Perhaps to avoid such unnecessary deaths in future, we should think about radical change. The A40 is mostly wide enough to accommodate cycle paths on both sides of the road from West Wycombe to Great Milton.

If the road was then restricted to 40mph and also to a 7.5 tonne weight limit (except for access), it would become a relatively safe road to cycle on.

If this road was situated in most European countries, it would have been done 10 years ago and would now be full of cyclists! We have a good motorway, the M40, if people want to drive at 70mph, or transport heavy goods, between Wycombe and Stokenchurch.

For too long vehicles emitting pollution, which poisons our children, the UK and the planet, have ruled the roost. The times they are a changing!

May some good will come to other cyclists from this tragic event.

John Laker, Marlow

Are we on the road to ‘normal’?

THE MP for Buckingham, Greg Smith, wrote in last week's BFP that the UK is "now firmly back on the road to normal."

Are we? Wouldn't it be lovely? We should all look at the evidence as the economy going into crash dives and our Covid death rate is among the very worst in the world.

At the start of the outbreak Boris had lots of public trust at his disposal. There was sense of collective duty in facing a national threat.

But we now see that resource has been shamefully squandered and his lack of competence and focus is the reason. Too many blunders and awful loss of more than 40,000 lives in just a few months.

Alongside that is the suspicion that Labour probably wouldn't have done any better.

Name and address withheld

Too many speeding drivers on our roads

RE: ‘I fear someone could die on busy Sands road’, Bucks Free Press letters page, June 5

Sadly, there are many idiots with driving licences who speed in and around Wycombe, who use our residential roads like their own personal racetracks.

As one of the local members for the area, I have been working with residents, the council, and the police at ways of addressing this issue. I take this very seriously and it’s at the top of my priorities.

A few days ago I along with neighbouring Cllrs Majid Hussain rep Booker, Cressex and Castlefield and Cllr Mrs Lesley Clarke rep Abbey Ward held a meeting with the Chief of the Wycombe Police neighbourhood team to discuss ways of working in partnership with the police to stop speeding motorists and also the organised car meets which are held in Wycombe from time to time (which also involve speeding vehicles).

This was set up by Cllr Mrs Clarke as she too is fed up with the same problem in her patch, as is Majid in his (who also has set up and paid for their own MVAS sign).

I along with the Sands Residents Association have acquired our own MVAS speeding measurement device which both flashes the speed limit along the road and records the number of vehicles and their speed (which is then sent to the police), we are in the process of setting up this near to the old peoples home near to the bottom of New Road.

Also, residents have set up a Community Speed Watch scheme.

Finally, the police have promised to work with the organisers of these car meets to make sure that they are no longer held in Wycombe (i.e. in places such as ASDA, Waitrose and the Sands or Cressex Industrial estates).

Sadly installing any schemes cost money and a speed camera as we already have a little further up New Road is paid for and decided where to be installed by the police and I believe that there needs to be a number of deaths before a new one is considered to be installed. I wish that this was not the case, but any schemes have to be paid for and are very costly.

With regards to individual vehicles that you see speeding, please let the police know the information (i.e. reg of car, time/day and location) to either calling 101 using the online form (www.police.uk/pu/contact-the-police/report-a-crime-incident) or email me if in Sands or Booker (darren.hayday@buckinghamshire.gov.uk).

Cllr Darren Hayday, via email

Not all Bucks Tories back Cummings

As a Wycombe District Councillor for the last forty years, I wanted to say that not all of the Tory councillors back Dominic Cummings (Bucks Free Press, May 29, page 9 – ‘Tory councillors defend Dominic Cummings’).

I most certainly do not. I felt most strongly that Cummings should resign.

I have written to my MP Rob Butler who has now been elected our MP after David Lidington stepped down and have made my feelings on the matter known.

I do believe that there are many like me who are very unhappy that he is still in his job. His manner in the garden of number 10 showed contempt and left an impression of someone who thinks he is invincible.

I have also sent a letter to my local Conservative Association Chairman at Aylesbury expressing my sincere concerns on the issue.

I am also very disappointed in Boris Johnson I feel very let down by his response in this matter but not really surprised.

I myself have had to self-isolate due to underlying health problems. I have not seen my children and grandchildren since Christmas.

As much as I would love to see them, I could not put them in a situation like that and would never forgive myself if any of my family got ill.

My son and my daughter-in-law are both frontline workers and are doing what they can to make sure that the people they serve are protected.

Cllr Jean Teesdale, via email

Can council pick up their own litter?

I have written on more than one occasion about people discarding litter but can someone from Wycombe District Council please arrange to have THEIR old road works signage ‘litter’ removed from the Marlow to Bourne End roundabout. It has been there for months.

I counted four dozen cones plus various large signs, some standing up, some lying down but they are a real eyesore plus being potentially dangerous (the ones lying around on the pavements).

Perhaps there’s a bit of forward planning though as there is also a ‘flood’ warning along the A4155 and the slip road sign for roadworks to the A404 be carried out in March didn’t actually say which year to be fair!

Name withheld, via email

The town and river deserve better

It is indeed good to see the continued support for the restoration of the River Wye through our town. There is wider public support for this initiative, now even more relevant to reviving the town following the impact of Covid-19 on national shopping habits. So thank you BFP for sustaining continued interest, keep it going.

I had the privilege and indeed pleasure of leading the wide ranging and exhaustive study for the District Council, which made a firm and conclusive recommendation to the council leaders to proceed as part of the new town masterplan.

The study was probably the most detailed cross party and technically sound analysis ever carried out by the (old) council, and it proved conclusively that it is feasible and entirely possible to open the long lost river to the bottom of the Archway roundabout, at street level.

The works could be integrated into the planned inner relief road construction for a relatively modest c£3m increased cost, good value indeed if done concurrently.

Importantly there is further scope to extend the river through to the already open section by the Swan Theatre in due course. What an impressive contribution to our town that would be.

Sadly, the WDC cabinet in its dying days, pending the merger into the unitary council, lacked the vision and courage to commit to the project at that time, although a firm future marker was put down.

It is indeed encouraging to see that the new Buckinghamshire Council are reconsidering the idea. A fresh new council may just be the key to unlocking the project, I do hope so.

The community and social benefits it would bring to the town are substantial, today’s towns need to have a experiential reason to visit, not to park in a faceless car park, shop and go home, we need to attract the wider public to maintain the vibrancy, economy, pleasure and character of our rather special historic town.

I wonder how many urban designers would today bury one of the Chilterns’ finest chalk streams in dark, dank culverts so as to provide just a few extra shops in an inward-looking shopping centre. Rivers add life and interest to towns and drive economic prosperity.

The Wycombe Society gave strong and helpful support to the recommendations, as did many councillors, and the town committee, together with governmental agencies and retailers.

The splendid “Revive the Wye” group, and the old council have already achieved many substantial and sustainable improvements to our historic river and the work continues.

So do let’s keep this imaginative and regenerative proposal alive, It needs strong ongoing public support for the new council to commit investment, like so many other towns where similar schemes have been successfully implemented, so let’s restart the political journey to restoring the historic river that gave the town its name and created its current prosperity, it deserves better and so does our town.

Cllr Hugh McCarthy, via email

Government to be sued for failings

I'd like to tell you that the3million.org.uk has successfully raised £60,000 to sue the government for failings in the European Parliament election last year.

John Halford, acting for the3million's Nicolas Hatton and others, said, "The #DeniedMyVote test case asks the High Court to rule that last year’s disenfranchisement was unlawful and establish a precedent that discrimination against EU nationals as a group is as unlawful as it is

unacceptable in a democracy".

Phil Jones, High Wycombe – member of the European Movement UK

‘Project Fear was actually Project Fact’

Roger Dixon, in last week’s BFP letters page, is alarmed that “The EU are anti-UK in trade talks”. He sounds surprised. What happened to “they need us more than we need them”, or that negotiations would be “the easiest trade deal in history”?

The fact of the matter is that the EU are pro-EU in trade talks! The EU negotiators are there to defend the interests of the EU member states. We used to enjoy the benefits of their negotiating talents, as the EU secured beneficial trade deals around the world.

Now, having persuaded us that we should leave the EU, people like Roger Dixon are only now waking up to the reality that they were warned about. The reality that the Brexiteers called “Project Fear” is now shown to have been “Project Fact” all along.

The Prime Minister claimed at last year’s General Election that he had an “oven-ready” trade deal with the EU lined up.

Like everything else that Boris Johnson says, that turned out to be a lie. But the damage is done, and the UK has now left the EU. You’d think that Roger Dixon would be happy. Instead, he and all the rest of us must now suffer the consequences of the breath-taking irresponsibility of those who led us down this barren path.

Neil Timberlake, West Wycombe