Check out this week’s Hunts Post Letters to the Editor
On May 16, there was something on in Priory Park, in St Neots and the car parking was all along Huntingdon Road, from the mini roundabouts at the bottom of Priory Hill, solid until the park entrance.
No passing spaces, just solid parking. Given the fact that someone decided to paint double yellows down Priory Hill, I understand it was to stop rail users parking there, they have just moved the problem to Huntingdon Road, and what a problem it is.
So come 6pm the road was grid locked. Tempers were frayed, horns were sounded and drivers got so frustrated that they sped along because some minutia of a space had opened up 100 yards away.
Then, given the fact, that this road is narrower than the Hill, drivers think it quite alright to drive along the pavement, irrespective of whether there are people on it.
Last year all this happened again. I brought it up with St Neots Town Council, Huntingdonshire District Council and Cambridgeshire County Council, and they all blamed each other and all said there was nothing they could do.
I even got clipped by a wing mirror by some ‘lovely driver’ who thought it a great idea to drive on the pavement. Yet, no council helped me.
How can this be okay? What is happening now is ridiculous, dangerous and shows not an ounce of common sense.
Last year, I was told it was a matter for the organisers of events to encourage drivers to use Almond Road and to get permission from local schools to allow them to park in their car parks.
Clearly this has not even been mentioned as everyone is parking on Huntingdon Road.
If parking is to be allowed to stay on Huntingdon Road then at least use some common sense, and put bollards out to create passing points.
If drivers are unable to pass, then that is where the issues starts.
The road is not wide enough for three lanes of traffic, so people are just using the pavement.
As a matter of info, it is an offence to drive on a pavement. Rule 145 states you are not allowed to drive on the pavement, unless in an emergency. And I don’t think getting home for your supper is an emergency!!
Also, why are Cambridgeshie Police turning a blind eye to this issue?
Someone somewhere surely could help ?
S Critcher
St Neots
Will it be goats next?
I refer to the patch of grassland know as Beatty Woods in St Neots.
The council stopped mowing in mid April. It has now become overgrown waste land, unfit for anything and even dog walkers don't use it any more.
Whoever dreamed up the No May May idea hasn't got a clue about how birds feed.
I guess the next bright idea to come up would be to have goats or alpacas tethered there, which would at least something useful.
Lastly who's going to clear up after it is eventual mowed or will they just leave it.
Mike Friend
Beatty Road
The River Great Ouse was topic
A study day on this topic of the River Great Ouse was held by the Cambridgeshire Alliance of Lifelong Learners (CALL), at Great Stukeley on Saturday, May 13.
Two good speakers each gave two hour-long illustrated talks, with intervals for tea breaks and attendees’ packed lunches.
The morning session, on the geology of the area and on mill structures, was given by Keith Grimwade.
The Domesday Book recorded 13 watermills between Brampton and St Ives, with the Hemingfords.
Some may have existed from the Danelaw period in the ninth century, but, by the 1,300s, these had become big enterprises of national importance.
One mill was owned by Aubrey de Vere, one of William I’s barons, and three were owned by Ramsey Abbey.
Keith’s research into 14th century legal records had revealed many accounts of litigation between mill-owners carrying out work to maximise their revenue and local residents for whom that work proved a nuisance.
In the afternoon, the speaker was Bridget Flanagan, author of a book on the St Ives painters.
She devoted one session to the artists, significant in the period 1880 to 1930, including Robert Farren, who painted the mills before they were lost, (except Houghton Mill), and the celebrated Walter Dendy Sadler.
Her second talk was about leisure on the Ouse, a ‘golden age’ after the decline of the river’s industrial and commercial use, caused by 19th century transport developments. Recreation and sports included angling and shooting, rowing and punting, even winter skating.
CALL Chair Vera Williams thanked the speakers for their stimulating presentations, which merited the applause from the sizeable audience.
Dan Beck