LETTERS TO THE EDITOR


We care for our customers Dear Sir – In response to your letter “Trolleyed off by Sainsbury’s” from Audrey Garner (Town, March), I would like to stress that customer and colleague safety is our top priority at Sainsbury’s. We decided to close the entrance by the


bus station a number of years ago to help curb theft in the store. Recently, we also adopted the £1 refundable trolley fee after suggestions from customers in favour of the system. This was to ensure availability of trolleys


for customers and to prevent trolleys from being abandoned in the community or thrown into the river – something that was happening on rare occasions. Feedback from the majority of customers


has been positive. However, after listening to concerns from those approaching from the bus station, we have now introduced a barrier for trolleys along the front of the store, which we hope is helping to make it easier for these customers. Additionally, we introduced self-service checkouts as a speedy alternative for our customers to pay for purchases. They have been very well received by customers, with more than 50% using them regularly. We appreciate that self-service checkouts are not for everyone, so we aim to ensure that there are enough manned checkouts open in the store.


Sarah Dunne, spokesperson for Sainsbury’s


Barge is inhabited Dear Sir – I regularly ride the towpath along the River Medway, so I was interested to read your article on the barge (Town, April). Last night I was surprised to see a group of


at least six people at the barge. Two were on the bank, seemingly cooking around a fire; the rest were passing sleeping bags etc into the barge. Your articlesaysthe bargeis“notina habitable state”. Oh dear, it is being made habitable. How long before they start throw- ing their rubbish etc into the river? I have a friend who owns and lives on a


boat at Farleigh. Why should he pay his mooring fees and bills etc when these peo- ple do not?


Christopher Barker, by email


In support of Tovil school Dear Sir–Ihave just read an article in the Tovil Parish Council section of the Townedi- tion (April), which quotesme as saying I am “annoyed at the school” for allowing people to cross at the Ecclestone Road junction. This is untrue as I have supported the school all along and have no issues with it. What I did say is that I had suggested the developer should bring in a school crossing patrol,while we wait for the puffin crossing to be installed, and that my concerns were road safety at the junction. I have made a formal objection to KCC highways against the change of the planning condition in re- lation to a six-month delay in the installa- tion of the new crossing. I felt the crossing should have been ready


before the school opened, for obvious high- way safety grounds. I totally support the school and have offered my apologies for the misreporting. Derek Mortimer, Tovil Parish Council


Life away from grammars Dear Sir – In the last Mail Marks (Town, April), Dennis Fowle discusses the estab- lishment of satellite grammar schools in the Sevenoaks area under the auspices of Tun- bridge Wells Grammar School. He makes a


42 Town


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number of generalisations, which are surely open to question. He states that grammar schools allow the essential “cream to rise”. Lots of parents in areas with comprehensive schools would be surprised to find their children are not able to rise. Children at wide ability schools such as Homewood, in Tenterden, might equally feel insulted. He goes on to say opponents of selection would be better employed raising the stan- dards in other schools, rather than attacking the best. We don’t attack the teachers and teaching in grammar schools, but the fact that selection produces winners and losers, successes and failures. I went through the same 11+ system he describes, but my selection for a grammar school in Cheshire meant others saw them- selves as failures. The phrase always used was “passing” the 11+. Selection for gram- mar schoolwas, and is, always based on the number of places in a grammar school and not on individual ability. For every “suc- cess”, there were four or more “failures”. The establishment of satellites in Sevenoaks will surely mean local pupils will attend those, leaving lots of empty spaces in Tunbridge Wells or Tonbridge, which will be filled by taking more pupils from other secondary schools in the area, thus depriving those schools of their aca- demic leaders. The government will then step in and accuse those schools of failing. I am proud that I taught for more than 30


years in Senacre, in whatMr Fowle would, no doubt, call a secondary modern school. I saw my pupils succeed in all walks of life, from the skilled trades to the professions, and felt honoured when a group of 50-year olds wanted to invite their ex-teachers to a reunion. There is more to education than passing exams. Mr Fowle should get into some of Kent’s secondary modern schools and see some of the sterling work teachers are doing to give all pupils, not just the cream, a start in life. Parents in areas with a comprehensive sys- tem, he should note, will campaign to keep that system whenever there is talk of intro- ducing selection. I don’t claim that everything in the garden


is rosy. There is still much to be done to im- prove the English education system, but se- lection is not the answer. He should ask himself why education in places such as Finland, which is non-selective, is appar- ently so much better than here. He ends by saying of his old grammar school that he reads “about significant roles so many of my peers play for Britain and their communities”. So, if you didn’t go to grammar school, you don’t! Brian Thomas,Maidstone and Malling NUT secretary


Parking fees deter shoppers Dear Sir – I am writing to say how much I agree with the letter from Barbara Skinner in the April 2012 Downs Mail. How many people are put off spending their money in Maidstone because of the excessive and un- reasonable charges in the town’s car parks? Barbara is wrong on one count, however.


She seems to expect that councillors and local government officers are actually capa- ble or willing to step outside the silos they appear to operate in and display a bit of joined-up thinking. There is a lot of concern nationally about


the demise of town centres. Maidstone is no different. One only has to walk around the town to see the number of empty shop fronts and businesses lost from the town.


Many have moved out of town, where park- ing for their staff and their customers is free. Those businesses based in the town al-


ready pay high business rates, which must be a disincentive to them. If they were re- duced to a reasonable level, perhaps busi- nesses would be attracted to setting up in the town and the revenue stream for the borough might just increase. Turning to parking, through excessive charges, the borough indirectly taxes peo- ple and effectively punishes them for shop- ping in those town centre businesses providing revenue for the borough and, in some cases, struggling to survive. Can coun- cillors and officers not see how perverse and self-defeating this is? It would perhaps not be realistic to re-


move charges altogether, but surely there is a case for capping the parking charges at a realistic, reasonable level so people are not put off parking in the town and spending their money in the town’s businesses? On the matter of parking charges in the evenings in the town’s car parks, most of them are virtually empty at night. As there is no supply and demand issue, why were charges introduced? Could it be a desire to fleece the poor motorist yet again? PaulMillen, Kingswood


Hollow parking threats Dear Sir – If our experience over the last 40 yearsinthe LooseRoadareaistobere- peated in Allington, I regret to advise resi- dents of that part of town that signs banning parking on grass verges have no impact whatsoever on this problem (Town, April). During that period, council staff have told


me that not a single motorist has been pros- ecuted, despite the threat of a derisory £50 fine. Furthermore, it seems there is no park- ing enforcement agency on patrol, other than in the town centre. The enforcers are supposed to be the traf-


ficwardens.While their office can, with dif- ficulty, be contacted during business hours, it is impossible to report transgressions after 5.30pm, when most offences occur, includ- ing overnight parking. The only way to pre- vent it has been the oak posts that have been put on some verges by the council. Not only do we have to contend with that nuisance, but also with those people who think they have every right to obstruct the pavement with their cars. Surely there is little point in putting up


signs warning of prosecution or fine, when these are totally hollow threats. David Hackett, ParkWay, Maidstone


Camera would be best Dear Sir – Reading the letters referring to the question of parking and speeding traffic in Tudor Avenue prompts me to comment on the subject of traffic-calming measures. Two of the writers advocate speed limits


and chicanes, but I doubt these measures will be as effective as they expect. I live in Castle Road, Allington, and shortly after the new estate was built at the bottom of Castle Road, the increased traffic was such that both traffic islands and chi- canes were installed with bollards. Far from calming the speedsters, the traf-


fic islands make no difference whatsoever, and the chicanes in fact present a challenge to some drivers to see how fast they can swerve around them. I’ve lost count of the number of bollards that have been knocked over by large lorries that bounce straight over the chicanes. I guess the only deterrent would possibly be a camera. Laurie Debona, Castle Road, Allington


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