April 27: Town's heart has stopped throbbing
On Wednesday morning this week, my friend and I walked through the jetty from The Drapery and on to our Market Square. We looked in shock at the scene before us.
This wasn't our Market Square, the one we've known and loved over the many years of our lives.
It was in the not-so-distant past a busy, thriving hive of people, smells, shouts of the stallholders, hustle and bustle of friends and acquaintances all laughing and talking together, shouting pleasantries at the stallholders . . . in fact a happy, buzzing community.
It was a great pleasure to go into town, meet on the market on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays . . . a highlight of our lives.
Now we feel totally lost. The fountain, the beautiful buildings surrounding the square, even the parked cars, so convenient for loading up with shopping, the hordes of people getting off the buses to shop in and around the square are gone.
Now we feel totally lost. Nothing will ever be the same.
With all the changes over the years, our precious Market Square bears no resemblance to how it was . . . the heart of the community.
We seem to have lost our identity in more ways than one.
I'm all for change if it's beneficial to us all and productive but now I am inclined to agree with the trader that said "there is no atmosphere".
And it could be the beginning of the end. It seems to my friends and I that the heart has stopped throbbing.
Rosemarie Garner,
Rosebery Avenue, Northampton.
Greatest asset is now destroyed
I could not help but be moved by Wayne Bontoft's article of March 24 regarding the plight of Mr Fitzpatrick and I suppose many other stallholders losing their position on Northampton Market Square.
The market has been one of the greatest assets Northampton town has ever had.
As a young kid in the 1950s, I remember my mum and dad riding on a motorbike and sidecar to the market every Saturday afternoon to do the weekly shop on the market.
There was one stall in particular where they said you could buy the best celery ever tasted!
They became good friends of those particular stallholders who had a caravan in Snettersham and as kids we used to visit and go cockle-picking with them on the sands.
I am sure that many Northamptonshire people have great memories of the market as it was and this borough council should be ashamed of themselves for destroying it and the livelihood of the remaining stallholders.
Liz Wiig,
Pytchley Close, Brixworth.
Money may have saved festival
It was very interesting to read your article on Monday, March 23, about Northampton Borough Council spending more than a million pounds of our money on consultants we were not consulted about.
Is that not the price of the balloon festival the Lib Dems cancelled through lack of funds? Not lack, apparently, just financial incompetence.
That would also explain why the council wants a new marina. These consultants now need somewhere to keep their yachts. The marina at Billing, which has been good enough for the people of Northampton to keep their craft, is obviously not good enough for the high earners employed by the council.
I am disgruntled, because I've been pursuing a flat that has been empty and in no fit state to be let, for three months.
It's now mine, but I can't have it until April, as I'm waiting for the consultant to work out the few weeks' council tax I would owe. Too busy counting his own loot I expect.
I have always been a Lib Dem supporter but the actions of this council clearly display my loyalty is mis-placed.
Graham Galloway,
Arthur Street, Kingsthorpe Hollow, Northampton.
Low pensions a stain on Britain
AS a former Labour Party voter, I really do hope Labour loses the next general election. My reasons:
After 12 years of a Labour Government we still have the very lowest pensions in Europe. This is an insult and a stain on our country. Pensioners in Italy, Spain and Greece get fives times the UK basic pension, while French pensioners get over four times as much.
Labour has had 12 years to put this right and has failed. Remember, Mr Brown has found billions for the banks.
Labour has surrendered much of our sovereignty to the EU, promised us a referendum on the new treaty, didn't let us have one, and signed it anyway.
Chancellor Darling told us not to ask for pay rises while he himself is on around 25,000 pounds per week.
The Home Secretary claims thousands of pounds for her second home, ditto Mr McNulty. These people are so shameless they should live on the Chatsworth Estate (apologies to Channel 4). They have closed our post offices and are planning to part privatise the Royal Mail and all this from a Labour Government. For shame.
Garry Marlowe,
Kingsley Road, Kingsley, Northampton.
MPs' numbers should be cut
IT is certainly no surprise to hear Gordon Brown defend Tony McNulty MP despite the scandal of him staying with his parents and claiming second home allowances, while having his own home 10 miles away.
Recently Jacqui Smith claimed while living with her sister and Tory MP Caroline Spelman claimed expenses for a nanny.
Is this just the tip of the iceberg? How many other MPs are ripping off the electorate of the UK, claiming for wives, secretaries, relatives and friends?
Politicians want more money, instead of expenses and one wonders if these people are as honourable as the title suggests, as members of the House of Commons, and really serve the taxpayers who voted them in.
Why can't they have a salary with paid State-managed accommodation available in London if they need it, not homes all over the place?
People may feel that we do not need so many MPs. Why can't we have half their number? Also, what about the elderly and disabled who cannot get to MPs' surgeries and/or find it difficult to write?
According to a radio programme I heard, Gordon Brown gets up at 4am. With the state of the country, he would do better staying in bed. Politicians who insist they work hard, need to spend more time in the real world, where people are losing their jobs, homes and livelihoods, with no chance of a pay rise, and cannot claim expenses for a second home.
The current state of the economy is due to poor Government. If politicians were paid by performance, they would owe us money.
I know I sound very cynical about politicians, but they only time they appear to be interested in the population is at election times and when we have a war.
Peter Minney,
Irondale Close, Northampton.
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Friday 10 February 2012
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