Published: 22/06/2010 16:42 - Updated: 22/06/2010 16:44

Letters to the Editor - June 23

SIR -  RE; Big Brother. I remember Ife as we danced for A&D Dance club when I were 12.We had fantastic fun at Camber Sands taking part in competitions and annoying the lifeguards. Big hair was the thing and the taller you could get it the better. At 16 we went and had our belly button pierced and I caught mine in the trampoline. Many friends have given up the dream including me, but Ife has never given up the dream. I have always been her champion and will be forever.

Tara Tomlin
sent by email


 
SIR - I saw your write up about Ife in MK NEWS. I have known her for a while now, we first met at the gym in 2004 where i worked at the time, both her and her fiancee Terry trained regularly, Ife would come in really early first thing in the morning and sometimes again in the evening, she's dedicated to her training! 
She has an amazing talent singing and dancing and she sang and performed with her dancers Darren and Jamie at my 30th Birthday in March this year which was just brilliant! Ife is the most inspirational and motivated person i know, she has worked hard and she deserves to go all the way in the music business. I'm backing her all the way on Big Brother!
Lindsay Slater
      
SIR - I wish to thank everyone who attended the meeting on Friday 11 June to protest about the bus situation in Milton Keynes.
Although it was a lively meeting, and there was much anger and frustration about the situation, we have achieved a number of outcomes. These outcomes are now being developed and as soon as possible these will be revealed as soon as they are achieved.
I want to assure everyone who attended that this only the beginning of seeking better bus services in Milton Keynes, not the end.
I also wanted to thank those who attended for the generous donations we received. The amount collected paid for the venue and left us a surplus towards a future meeting.
 
Peter Ballantyne
Chair, Milton Keynes Older Persons Forum

SIR - I have no interest in what you have experienced in South Africa.
I do however have empathy with anybody struggling with the revised MK bus service. Referring to Ms Minshalls comment re a nanny state; I pay £33 a month to Arriva and £4,000 per year to national rail; hardly relying on a nanny state! However I am continuously let down by Arriva. When is somebody in their senior management team going to take responsibility for their operational failures and provide a reliable service?

Paul Millo
sent by email


SIR - I read with interest the problems people are experiencing with the buses in and around Milton Keynes. We have a small car so I don’t usually use the buses; perhaps it is just as well because Newton Longville has one bus an hour from 9.27am to 5.30pm. Nothing on Sunday. It makes me wonder how the people in this village manage to get to work. My husband was ill in January and as I don’t drive, I had no alternative but to take the bus in order to buy food and necessities. To get from here to Bletchley, which is roughly four miles, and do a little grocery shopping took four hours.
Firstly, the bus in the village was 45 minutes late. I was unable to find out the time of the bus to bring me back to Newton Longville because the bus I required was the only one not listed at the bus station. After almost two hours, the bus appeared. I telephoned the bus company and was informed the missing bus had broken down.
I have lived on the continent and in quite a few towns in the UK. Never have I seen a bus station as dirty and unkempt as Bletchley bus station. It is filthy and an absolute disgrace. No one would like to sit on the seats if they were wearing good clothes and when you consider the average wait is around twenty minutes, it’s difficult to stand with bags of shopping. There is never an inspector or any personnel from Arriva to help the people who are confused by the system. One young lady this week had an interview in MK Central and was getting quite upset when she was unable to get there. Aylesbury is not too far from here and I believe most of the buses that run from there are owned by Arriva. At the bus station in Aylesbury, there is a sheltered waiting room with clean seats, a coffee machine and an office to go to should you need to enquire about your journey. This is how it should be in this day and age. Bletchley bus station belongs in the third world.

Brenda O’Gorman
Newton Longville




SIR - With news that Chiltern Railways are developing a new rail route from Oxford via Bicester to London Marylebone and Stagecoach increasing the X5 service between these two cities to every half an hour (from hourly) I am sure there would be plenty of demand for a good service from Milton Keynes via Bicester to Oxford and via Bedford to Cambridge
If your frustrated motorist fed up with waiting at level crossings "while a train with empty carriages passes by" spent two hours travelling by coach to Cambridge he might realise the benefit?
Unfortunately Cambridge County Council have invested over £130 million on a guided concrete busway from St Ives into the City that is more than a year overdue in opening and still suffering design and construction problems
If those sums had been put into re opening the Oxford-Cambridge rail link we could have had fast trains to both destinations and much better links to the rest of the UK.
You cannot compare problems of a local branch line service with the opportunities of us being rejoined to two major academic,industrial and travel hubs.

Alan Pugh
Linden Grove



SIR - I am always amazed when someone, presumably from the left or the labour party, talks about local democratic accountability especially when it is in connection with schools.
All parents want their children to receive the best education that is available within the district and unfortunately in most local authority areas through out the UK, that is not possible for a whole range of reasons.
Lets look at the arguments put forward by A Zucker in last weeks MK NEWS.
So the LEA will lose the "outstanding" schools, as far as parents whose children don't live within the schools catchment area are concerned they might as well be, because they have as much chance of getting their children into one of these schools as they have of winning the lottery and many try every year with out success.
The long slippery slope to privatisation, now there's a thought, does that mean our schools will provide the same facilities and educational opportunities as private or public schools?
The children that go to failing or substandard schools already leave with labels attached, that will be no different to the current situation.
 So the substantive objection is that it will mean the end to local accountability, Just remind me how many of our local councilors, of any party, listen to what the parents want, when did any of them ask the parents what education they would want for their children ? In the 12 years my children have attended school I cannot remember that ever happening, in fact when we asked for help getting my youngest into the same school as her older sibling I was told there was no way that could happen. Local accountability is a myth  and a smoke screen but I agree we should be consulted about how and where our children should be educated.
Headmasters and Governors don't own our schools, correct, but neither do the local councilors who too many times have party agendas to protect and not parent agendas.
Local Authorities have consistently failed our children  by  not providing the excellent schools they require throughout their districts, perhaps this new approach will allow the LEA to concentrate their time and their resources into helping those schools that are not as well equipped as others to reach the standards of the opted out schools.
As far as the non cooperation with opted out schools are concerned, that is scare mongering of the worst type, all opted out schools work with schools still under the LEA control exactly as before.
Our children deserve, as a right, the opportunity to have an education that enables them to fulfill their potential at school and in their future careers and if provides them with this lets do it now.Just think how happy all parents would be if this means that we will end up with every school that parents want their children to attend.
We heard these arguments when the MK Academy was first proposed and I would recommend any parent who has misgivings about this proposal to contact the Head of the Academy and ask for a tour around the facilities. It has the facilities, teachers and educational standards that match or exceed the best schools within Milton Keynes.
It still has problems to face but it now has the teachers who have the drive and energy to tackle these issues.


Stuart Wallace
sent by email