A short history lesson for the new town council clerk – this is a market town. In years gone by there were cattle, sheep, pigs and horses in the town centre which the local authorities managed to clear up after.

It would seem that with modern mechanical cleaning equipment, surely today's council can cope with a few ducks? Let's face it, the residue from the ducks is far easier to deal with than the chewing gum, fast food waste and human waste that litters the streets, especially after Friday and Saturday nights when the local youngsters have been out having a good time.

May I suggest that the council spends its time on more important issues than trying to turn St Ives into a mini-metropolis by eradicating any sign that the town is in a rural location.

I can only assume that if the town council is successful in eradicating the Muscovy ducks that it plans to move on to the wild ducks and swans that dare to visit the town, or are we saying that wild swans and ducks don't leave droppings?

St Ives is a historic market town, and the irony of this farcical affair is that the proposed new town sign shows two swans on it, perhaps this is because if the council has its way this will be the only ones allowed into the area.
Mrs Anne Vincent
California Road
St Ives


>> Through the doors of selected areas, people are receiving the latest spiel from the RSPCA.
Headed with "The Law has changed - the RSPCA can now undertake the BIGGEST animal rescue ever", followed by; "Please will you send a small gift of £3 a month... to save hundreds of innocent victims from neglect and cruelty over the coming weeks and months".

Under the new law, the RSPCA Inspectors – backed by the police – can intervene much sooner in situations where they think animals are "at risk".
So you would think that domesticated ducks dumped on a river where the council are not happy would be an area covered by the above?
But again it appears that the RSPCA are selective in what they consider worth helping.
C Sterry
Stowe


>> The RSPCA told the Town Crier that they would not get involved just because the ducks were unwanted, only if there was "an immediate threat to their welfare, as with the flood defence project".

 After 45 years working within the field of aviculture and specialising in wild bird rehabilitation, I have become accustomed to the RSPCA`s reluctance to help both captive and especially wild birds. Just about any wildlife rescue in the area would, if requested by the council, be only too pleased to help re-locate these Muscovy ducks and save them from being culled.

Independent wildlife rescues have a very good networking system, which is sadly where the RSPCA also fail.

They do not have the facilities, nor appropriate links to handle birds and this is perhaps why they have such a high destruction pecentage.
As an invited consultee in the new Animal Welfare Act, I clearly remember the RSPCA stating "the law has changed - the RSPCA can now undertake the BIGGEST animal rescue ever".

This seems to be only relevant to domestic furry creatures.
If someone will be kind enough to capture these unwanted, abandoned ducks, Safewings will gladly find them a permanent new safe environment.
Andrew Meads
Safewings Wildlife
Conservation Projects
Isham, Northants
NN14 1HP
01536 726113


Cemetery space
>> During the past year, St Neots Town Council has made decisions concerning allotments and cemetery provision under confidentiality rules which deny individual councillors the right to tell anyone what has secretly been decided behind closed doors.

The facts are St Neots has an expanding and increasingly diverse population and is under pressure for both burial provision and ever widening preferences of members of the St Neots community. Acquisition of land for allotments is a simple way to get income in the short-term whilst discretely reserving land for possible cemetery use in the medium term.  

When questioned last week, Cllr Giles as chairman of the town council's policy and resources committee, reminded members that St Neots must accommodate multi-faiths.

Currently there are no plans to consecrate the new Eaton Socon cemetery for Christian burials. Instead, the people of St Neots will be offered a paupers grave. I think we all recognise that St Neots is changing in many ways but why penalise Christians and where should the line be drawn?

As a St Neots Englishman, I for one do not want to see a Tower of Silence in Eaton Socon and I am certain those living nearby would also object. 

I daresay I will be attacked again for speaking up, but what is the point of electing councillors to take decisions if they hide decisions from the people who elected them in the first place?
Cllr Barry Chapman
Conservative councillor
St Neots Town Council


Bike day
>> I hope motorbike riders turn up to the bike day at St Neots fire station (Town Crier, March 27).

Many have no respect for other road users or the law. Police used to crackdown on bad drivers, now they leave it to speed cameras.
S Shepherd
Huntingdon


New health centre plans welcomed>>
We most certainly do need the new health centre.
My sister lives in Kettering and they have had a service exactly like this for a while now called Key Doc and it really is fab.

I stayed with her for a weekend in 2006 with my son, who was aged one at the time. Within a matter of hours of our stay he became quite poorly.

I was filled with dread straight away at thoughts of waiting for hours in casualty with a one-year-old who was becoming more and more upset.
My sister, who is a nurse, checked him over quickly and was sure it was an ear infection.
 
She picked up her phone and from her side of the conversation I understood she was making an appointment for my son with a doctor – on a Saturday!

She put the phone down and explained to my obvious look of disbelief that it was okay, they had a clinic five minutes away where GPs saw people seven days a week between 8am and 8pm, and that our appointment was in twenty minutes.
We saw a lovely doctor who confirmed it was an ear infection and wrote a prescription for ear drops to use alongside a child-friendly pain relief.

Thanks to supermarkets like Tesco that have in-house pharmacies, within an hour we were diagnosed and had collected our prescription allowing us to start treatment for ear- ache that afternoon.

The NHS casualty depts really are fantastic but this new health centre can only help them by taking the pressure off.

Key Doc really were fantastic and I think that an ever expanding St.Neots would really benefit from the proposed health centre.
Anna Thompson
St Neots


>> Of course we need a long awaited health centre in St Neots.
What happened to the one that was supposedly going to be built on the old swimming pool site?
Lets hope we get it quicker than other things in St Neots, rather than more houses.
Ann Page
via email


>> The plans for a proposed health centre in St Neots are splendid, especially as in the past I have to had to travel (particularly at weekends) to Huntingdon for medical treatment.

With St Neots expansion plans I'd say it was an urgent necessity.
D J Simpson
Hawthorn Road
St Neots


Fed up with second class bus service
>> No wonder people prefer to use their cars to travel in this area. Bus passengers are sometimes treated as second class citizens. 
One recent example was on Wednesday March 26 at St Ives Bus Station.
Cromwell Road was blocked due to an accident but nobody came along to tell the would-be bus travellers waiting there in vain how they could catch a bus.

I arrived at 12.40pm and people told me that they'd been waiting for half an hour but no buses turned up. It was a cold rainy day and we were all desperate to get home but nothing happened and no information was forthcoming, so I was lucky to get a taxi to take me home to Huntingdon.

Instead of a free bus ride, using my bus pass, I had to pay £10 for this six-mile journey.

I have just received my new bus pass which will allow me to travel free by local buses all over the country (although not before 9.30am), but what use will that be to me when there are no buses to catch? 

Why don't the bus operators take their responsibilities to their customers seriously and treat them with respect?
 
The Guided Bus will have to use the roads between Hinchingbrooke Hospital and St Ives, so any problems similar to that experienced on March 26 will also upset their timetable.
 
Or perhaps the bus operators are happy to run near-empty vehicles from Huntingdon to Cambridge? 

It would be interesting to hear what they have to say. So far their motto seems to be 'silence is golden'. 
Diana Richardson


Council needs more meetings
>> I am an independent candidate for election to St Ives Town Council on May 1, but I have grave concerns about the organisation of the town council's meetings.

In the past two years there have been decisions and changes which are a further manifestation of the obsession of this present council with political control above all else.

First, this year's annual town meeting has been fixed for Wednesday, April 30 – the day before Election Day.
The town meeting is the only opportunity currently for electors to discuss concerns with councillors formally in public, and in previous years have always been held earlier in April.

The timing, particularly after the council's Corn Exchange debacle, will give many residents who prefer to be busy with the election little chance to attend.

It also gives the press no chance to report on the meeting before election day.
Second, in December 2006, the council decided to meet as a full council every two months, instead of each month. 
This change means that new and urgent matters are not picked up and progressed as quickly and efficiently as they should be.

Ask St Ives Youth Town Council and residents around Warner's Park what they think about the drawn-out, messy and heavy-handed treatment of the issue of a youth shelter in St Ives.

The need to call no fewer than six extraordinary meetings in the last year and resulting poor attendance by councillors speak for themselves.
Third, the move to bi-monthly meetings also saw the introduction of the all-powerful finance and policy committee. This comprises seven Conservative councillors and one Liberal Democrat. 

Initially councillors who were not members of the committee were not permitted to attend, then they were allowed to, but only if they could give a good reason.

What moved the council to even think of introducing such undemocratic and draconian changes and rules?
Monthly council meetings need to be re-instated and the F&P committee must be scrapped.

In the United States, Barack Obama speaks constantly about the need for change. 
Here in St Ives we need change on the town council urgently and in large measure.
Ian Dobson
Rookery Close
St Ives


Litter menace
>> I walked from my home in St Audrey Lane, St Ives, into the town centre on bank holiday Monday and was disgusted with what littered the streets.
Down Ramsey Road there were various fast food boxes with chips, kebab and burger remains with sauce all spilling out. As Ramsey Road joins The Waits, quite a few of the plants had been pulled out and were either on the pavement or sitting on people's windowsills.

There were hundreds of cigarette ends outside one pub, and a large blood stain on one of the paths with blood droplets leading back up Bridge Street towards a shop entrance where there was another blood stain.

Fast food outlets should be made to go around the town and clear up the rubbish and pubs to pick up cigarette butts.
What visitors to St Ives must think, I really don't know. 
Mr M Dann


Play area thanks
>> ON behalf of my children and other parents with young children in the Nelson Road area, we would like to say how pleased we all are by the new play area on the green.

We would especially like to thank Mrs Mandy Thomas for months of campaigning on behalf of the children of Eaton Socon and without whose efforts we would still be waiting. Well done Mandy.
Mrs Jan Saunders
Beatty Road
Eaton Socon