Viewpoint: Poor parking provision in Nicholson Quarter plans

Call for council action over state of cemetery

The state of Braywick Cemetery is nothing short of a disgrace.

About a month ago the grass was strimmed but all the loose grass was left behind, it looked a mess.

The council representative in response to my previous challenge made a few years ago when you published an article on this subject announced this was for the good of nature – a more cynical view would suggest someone couldn’t be bothered to complete the task.

I would urge you to challenge the local authority on the current state of the cemetery.

Grass is at least ankle high across the cemetery, in many places it is above knee height.

Words can’t accurately describe how bad the area looks.

The cemetery should be treated as a place of respect.

Whoever is in charge of the maintenance of the cemetery should be ashamed of themselves and should take a good look at the state of this supposed sacred place.

If whoever visits happens to visit weekdays from at least 0930 to 1015 they can have a chat with at least two Tivoli staff members who are always sitting in their vehicle taking in refreshments.

HUGH BOULTER

Camley Gardens

Maidenhead

Poor parking provision must be addressed

The date has passed for comments to be submitted on the proposed redevelopment of the ‘town centre’ following the demolition of Nicholsons Walk.

Before the decision is made by a hopefully robust planning panel of elected representatives it is time to pause and reflect on the sorry state we are in.

The redevelopment of Maidenhead has occurred in a piecemeal and disjointed manner to date.

Nicholson Quarter is regarded as the final piece of the jigsaw.

However, these proposals are not really a regeneration scheme of the town centre.

They are a very large residential scheme of 856 dwellings, with 55 small retail units at street level, with an office block and a multi-storey car park (MSCP).

Whilst there is 1.65 acres of public realm, the street level experience will be overshadowed by high rise blocks, lacking in natural light and subject to various levels of wind tunnel effect.

This is not like The Lanes of Brighton as is suggested.

The current application replaces the already approved 2021 proposal for a scheme which included the notorious 25 storey landmark tower block – now reduced to 20.This earlier scheme had a more balanced mix of economic activity with more employment/office space.

Most importantly it identified the need to provide a MSCP to replace the existing Broadway MSCP (since demolished).

To serve the wider town as well as the Nicholsons Quarter a capacity of 885 spaces were to be provided.

The latest proposed MSCP is significantly reduced and only has a total capacity of 452 spaces.

Only 100 spaces will be for shoppers/visitors of which 21 are for Blue Badge holders (including patrons of a new ShopMobility hub).

Within the remainder others are reserved for EV charging.

It is maintained by the developers that car use will decline rapidly in the near future and that current public car parking capacity is underutilised.

Hence there will be no demand for the previous 2021 level of provision.

The town centre will be in construction turmoil for the next five years while the scheme is being delivered.

Shoppers will drift away and when the scheme is completed will it have the retail pull to attract them back?

If there is inadequate parking provision the decline of Maidenhead will become a self-fulfilling prophesy.

It is incumbent on our planning officers and elected councillors to refuse this scheme whilst it offers such poor public parking provision.

MARTIN McNAMEE

Chair planning group

Maidenhead Civic Society

We are a far cry from 24-hour pothole fixes

Starting in September 2019 there was a change in the Volker Contract to employ another gang to fix potholes in the carraigeways and footways within 24 hours at an extra cost of £450,000 per year.

This was for all carriageways and footways in the borough.

The cabinet report in May 2019 also stated the following, ‘It is equally important to ensure the quality of the repair’ and ‘to improve the aesthetic appearance’.

I can remember the hype at the time and there was even a demonstration showing how the area would be neatly squared off and filled properly.

This is how utility companies have to do it by law.

At the meeting Councillor Hill is minuted as saying that it was a very expensive way of repairing potholes and wonder if he still has that view.

A Freedom of Information request confirms this policy and payment is still current and, as the contract has been extended until next year, the £450,000 per year adds up to £3.1million by my calculation, not allowing for inflation.

I recently reported an area of footway in Dedworth Road, Windsor on May 23, receiving a quick reply stating minor routine defects will be fixed within 28 days, allowing at least 10 working days for an investigation.

On May 29, I received a reply saying the work will be actioned within the next three months.

A far cry from 24 hour repair that’s costing us £450,000 per year.

I would argue that the damaged area is urgent due to the size and depth of it but clearly the inspector didn’t.

In the first reply I was told to phone in and report anything urgent, but, seriously, that is not my decision to make.

It is a double pothole very close together and now the council knows of it they are liable if anyone trips and injures themselves.

Three months for action, even for low priorities seems very excessive as potholes soon get bigger if left too long.

All over the borough there are so many potholes that have just been filled in by temporary fill.

Some of these areas extend, needing another plug filling within the first one.

There are some areas where there are multiple plug fillings in a small area and it looks ridiculous.

By not doing it properly the council is creating a massive problem for the future, and yet we are paying for the better service that we are not getting.

We, as council tax payers, are being taken for a ride (on potholed roads).

BARRY GIGGINS

Greenacre

Windsor

Emotive issue we can’t solve like an equation

Thank you to the author (Viewpoint, May 30) for again raising the question of assisted dying.

It is indeed a subject that deserves a public debate.

Indeed ‘squaring the circle’ is an illusion.

We have on the one hand the reasonable position that an individual with a terminal illness (facing death in circa six months) has a right to have their autonomous decision respected to end their life on their own terms by the legal provision of medication for self-administration.

On the other hand, many of the arguments against the bill becoming law cannot be ignored.

The fear of coercion is an undeniable reasonable concern.

Rather than ‘squaring the circle’ we have to weigh-up complex sets of rights; it is what one philosophically calls an ‘ethical dilemma’.

This means that society stands on such issues under several conflicting sets of reasonable moral obligations; no obligation overrides the others, but the obligations cannot be satisfied at the same time.

One cannot solve the issue like an equation.

We can only respect each other, try to find a consensus, or settle by using the best democratic process open to us.

Jay Flynn moves then to make a connection between assisted dying, a personal moral opinion that suicide is not acceptable, and the fact that laws surrounding abortion have developed over the years.

I am unconvinced that connecting the tragedy of a desperate person dying by suicide, the complex and contested issue of a woman’s right to undertake an abortion and assisted dying is a logical or constructive line of analysis and comparison.

I fear that it leads to an emotive muddying of the circle, rather than a peaceable debate and resolution.

NICOLA STINGELIN-GILES PhD, MBA

Maidenhead

Lack of public scrutiny on Windsor Yards deal

It beggars belief that this council continues to gaslight residents and opposition councillors into believing that scrutiny takes place at cabinet.

Effective scrutiny demands that issues that are discussed openly and fully, with back and forth questions that reach whatever depths of exposure and closure are needed, and that it is under the watchful gaze of the public.

Scrutiny does not take place at cabinet where there is no meaningful discussion between cabinet members of decisions, and everyone else is limited to closed questions which are not answered fully.

Scrutiny is designed to take place in overview and scrutiny panels where there is time for issues to be considered and explored at depth in public.

The net effect of this is that issues like the sale of the income generating Windsor shopping centre are disposed of without any scrutiny.

You can replace Windsor Yards for any RBWM asset of your choice e.g. Maidenhead Golf Course. These are public assets.

Remember that lead members are paid a pretty penny enabling them the time to focus full time on single issues, supported by a large cast of full time officers, yet members of the public and opposition are unrealistically expected to be aware of all the issues, and conduct their own research in their spare time.

And then valid requests for scrutiny by opposition councillors (Conservatives and Independent Alliance) are denied by officers arguably acting in an ultra vires manner.

This is not acceptable. council tax payers are concerned that they are being railroaded into a sub-optimal decisions.

We demand open, honest and transparent government with the ‘presumption to favour of openness and inclusive decision-making’ that is brought by effective scrutiny.

It is not too late scrutinse the sale of Windsor Yards.

Cllr WISDOM DA COSTA

WWRA, Clewer & Dedworth West

Group leader, Independent Alliance

Put mayoral portraits back in rightful place

Residents of the Royal Borough may remember that on their visits to the town hall, they would see a display of mayoral portraits on the first floor outside the Ccuncil chamber.

About a year ago, Councillor Simon Werner, leader of the Council, without notice or consent, removed all these portraits, consigning them to a storeroom in the basement.

By coincidence, about this time the Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer removed the portrait of Margaret Thatcher within 10 Downing Street!

These mayoral portraits had been in place since 1974, which was an historic date in terms of local government re-organisation.

Locally for example, Eton and Cookham Rural District Councils’ disappeared, Windsor and Maidenhead councils merged, creating the council we know today – the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead.

Our very first mayor was Sir Kit Aston. I knew him, he was an excellent mayor in setting the pattern for this new role as a Royal Borough mayor.

With Mayors changing annually, these portraits gave the public, councillors and officers a point of reference in our rather short history – so why take them away and consign them to a box in the basement?

After all it is a short history of only 50 years and as a council, we should be proud that members of the council in the past have served in this way.

I can honestly say that when I was Mayor in the Golden Jubilee 2002/3 and again in 2007/8, I found that averaging 700 to 800 events in a year, I met so many members of the public who were so glad to meet the mayor of the Royal Borough and

were so proud that the Sovereign lived in the Royal Borough.

So many good things emerged from this, particularly charities always well-patronised by the Royal Family.

I was told that these portraits would be replaced by something else but unfortunately I have to report that the walls are still blank, empty and neglected, so why don't we put the portraits back, putting the council we are today in an historical context, giving us a little bit of our own history back?

Cllr LEO WALTERS

Con, Bray

Countries can set their rules, as we set ours

It seems that we are still locked into the fantasy world of ‘Remainers’ versus ‘Brexiteers’?

When I go on holiday abroad, then I expect to have to obey the rules of that country – not just the rules of the UK.

After all it is their country and I am a visitor.

So that makes me ‘…a rule taker’. If I break their laws, I expect to be judged by their processes. In other words, I expect to be ‘…subject to a foreign court’.

If the boot was on the other foot, then it is similarly right for foreign tourists to the UK to obey our laws.

Now, turning to commercial conformity.

The customer is the one who makes the decision if they are happy to pay for UK manufactured goods (or services) – not the UK producer.

If a foreign country demands that UK goods/services match their specification – then that is their sovereign right. We can do the same.

Similarly, in any commercial contract one has specific clauses which cover in whose jurisdiction disputes are dealt with. It is often the customer’s country (or an international court).

If a commercial company wishes to export successfully, they are then willing ‘…rule takers, subject to a foreign court…’

Now, a large UK company has broadly four choices:

1) Follow UK standards only and never export.

2) Make two types of goods/services, one conformable with UK requirements and another that matches the foreign standards.

3) Just make goods/services suitable for export (and try to get UK approval to supply to the UK market).

4) Forget the UK market completely.

Whether UK standards are ‘better or worse’ than the foreign requirements may tilt the decision.

In a free market, these four business choices are commercial ones – they are not about making a political choice.

Indeed, the foreign government can demand what it likes in terms of individual goods inspections, import licence paperwork etc.

It is their country to decide whatever they see fit, just as the UK decides how to run itself.

A wise government will want to do a constructive ‘deal’ to make things easy for its exporters.

The simplest action is to make sure UK standards at least match (or if appropriate, exceed) the foreign requirements.

Furthermore, that this is acknowledged by the foreign country and a mechanism put in place to prevent ‘cheating’, plus a dispute mechanism.

There has to be agreed rules and procedures.

These are all practical measures and need not be judged through political spectacles.

We left the EU club – there are now different trade-offs.

We are not re-joining the EU Customs Union, Single Market nor agreeing free mobility of citizens.

There is no ‘…surrender…’ – just realistic attempts to enhance the ability for exporters to make money for the UK.

Now we are ‘on our own’, we have to deal with much bigger entities than ourselves.

Their behaviour does not need to be fair.

One cannot expect our desire for maximum UK advantage to necessarily win out anymore.

It is delusional to inflate one’s own self-importance in the face of increasing world-wide competition.

Whether we like it or not the UK’s prosperous future is becoming harder and trickier to map out.

Let’s take the wins we can get and move our country forward.

CLIVE BOWMAN

Fielding Road

Maidenhead

Privilege to lead Rotary visit to Saint-Cloud

I write having just returned from Saint-Cloud, Maidenhead’s twin town on the outskirts of Paris.

It was my privilege to lead a group of 15 people from the Rotary Club of Maidenhead to join up with almost 100 Rotarians from Germany, Italy, and France.

In late May each year, one of the four Rotary clubs hosts their friends on an exchange called ‘Quadrilateral’.

We were honoured to be offered warm hospitality by our French hosts.

Alongside visits of Fountainebleu and Notre Dame, we dined in fellow Rotarian’s homes and at a gala dinner at Cercle National des Armées in central Paris.

Our hosts were delighted their football team Paris Saint-Germain won 5-0 against Inter Milan!

Our Quadrilateral is founded on the Rotary ideals of dialogue, international cooperation, and friendship in the service of peace.

Our visit enabled us to build joint projects, exchange ideas on our respective actions, and strengthen human connections.

We were delighted to see one of six specialist disabled sport wheelchairs we jointly funded in Paris. As Rotarians we sincerely believe peace is not born solely from treaties, but also from relationships formed between people.

In 2026 it will be our club’s turn to host our international friends, as part of our club’s centenary celebrations.

If you’d be interested in finding out more about Rotary and getting involved, please visit www.maidenheadrotary.co.uk

MATTHEW BURDETT

President 2024-25

Rotary Club of Maidenhead