Letters to the Lincolnshire Free Press editor – December 15, 2020
Why does the council not have a published set of rules on section 106?
Regarding your story about Sutton Bridge marina, the headline should have read: “Who at South Holland District Council agreed to spend £400,000 of Sutton Bridge’s EDF S106 Funds on Lincolnshire County Council’s original ‘marina project’; which is not only nothing like the original plans, but cannot be accessed by anyone who lives in Sutton Bridge, unless they are lucky enough to own a boat, and got a mooring on the pontoons?”
It is clear from investigations, that SHDC does not have a proper, published set of rules against which, claims for S106 funds can be assessed.
Furthermore, by whom and when, was the decision at the county council taken to deny any tangible benefit (such as a share of the mooring fees) from their marina to Sutton Bridge?
Another question also needs to be asked – why are no proper targets in place, against which success or failure of the project can be measured?
I have tried to get answers to those questions but have come up against closed ranks both at the district and county councils. Maybe with the weight of the parish council joining the search (thanks to Coun Anne Scarlett) answers can be obtained, and proper scrutiny of what can only be described as a gross
error of judgement and even competence, in the whole ‘marina project’ at Sutton Bridge.
It is also noticeable that Coun Brewis abstained on the vote. Is he too close to the project?
If the same largely unsuccessful business plan has been used to convince the new grant funders, they have been ‘sold a pup’. If the present scheme does not work, throwing good money after bad will not change the position.
Chris Brandon King
Sutton Bridge
We should approach history with dispassionate objectivity
Claire Richardson in her letter last week is entirely wrong to defend the re-writing of history.
Working in Parliament, albeit not for Sir John, I am surrounded by history and heritage.
History is replete with examples in which historical revisionism, instigated by the well-intentioned, has been hijacked by tyrants and terrorists; transformed into a sinister form of historical negationism and used to normalise evil whilst downplaying prior wrongdoings.
The problem with approaching history from a subjective standpoint, attempting to reshape and reform what’s gone before, is that it leaves this possibility open to those who pursue more brazen, dangerous dishonesty for their own ends. Instead, we must endeavour to approach history with dispassionate objectivity, noting the priorities and perspectives of the time without allowing them to colour our own.
John Hayes is right that the left-wing drive to refashion history is a denial of what Britain is now. As he wisely points out, what we are now is, in part, a product of what we have been.
Imogen Sinclair
via email
