RE: Library signage.

The temporary signs directing the public to the temporary Southport Library have been in place on the hoardings outside the old site since the library moved to Tulketh Street in July.

These signs unfortunately suffered some damage and were replaced by further temporary signs last week in response to public comments.

Bovis, the main contractors for the site, are producing the signage directing the public to the temporary library.

Due to public concern, they were asked to produce permanent signage as a matter of priority and they are currently producing these new signs, which should be in place imminently.

It must be noted that usage at the temporary library has been steadily increasing since it opened it July. The library had over 17,000 visits last month.

This is approximately 70% of the number of visits that the old library had in the same period last year.

We are very pleased with these visitor numbers, considering the location isn’t on the main Lord Street thoroughfare and two popular sections of the library, the Reference, and Local History and archive sections have been relocated elsewhere in the borough.

It is a testament to the hard work of the staff at Southport Library in promoting the temporary site.

The support the library has received from the Southport Visiter in welcoming it to its premises and raising awareness of the valuable work carried out by the library for the local community has been invaluable.

CLLR MIKE BOOTH

Cabinet Member for Leisure & Tourism

Moneyspinning

THE proposed Ainsdale cycleway seems to me to be purely an invention of some Technical Services officers and a couple of Southport councillors in order to make use of money offered by Cycle England, a quango due to be abolished.

This farce, together with the absurdity of the proposed closure of Portland Street and Wennington Road, make me wonder whether these individuals actually live in the same world as the rest of us.

Perhaps they are simply inventing schemes in order to justify their own existence.

How many officers would become redundant if they were not producing the masses of documentation?

How is it possible to justify the existence of so many councillors?

So, please let us all return to the sanity of reality, the place where it is so easy to see that this town simply does not want these things and that the reasons invented to justify them are quite ridiculous.

JOHN LEE

Westmoreland Road, Southport

Yes to masts

FROM the latest Visiter I see that the subject of phone masts has reared its ugly head again.

Well, with respect to Mr Williams when he says, ‘Nobody he has spoken to wants these masts,’ well, I would question that.

Do those people he spoke to own mobile phones? I bet they do.

And does Mr Williams own one? That would be interesting to know.

And do these people own Blackberries and all the other phones that contact the internet?

If people want that kind of facility then they will have to have more and more masts as time goes on.

I ask this because I can only repeat what I said in a letter to the Visiter: “ The further away the phone is from a mast the more radiation it puts out to access that mast and the radiation is 100 times more intense that actually standing under the mast. So if it’s being held to the head or, as with children, texting and holding the phone in front of their stomachs the more dangerous it could become. Ergo, the more masts the better. I rest my case.”

Mr Williams is an electrical engineer, not a radio engineer like I have been, and he must know there is more danger standing under an electricity pylon than under a phone mast.

NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED

Marine diamond

A LITTLE while ago this paper had a front page heading ‘The Jewel in the Crown’, using this term to describe the Southport Show.

I wish to disagree with this observation. The ‘jewel’ in any town would be something that is permanent and gives pleasure to residents and visitors alike all year round, not something which lasts for a few days. We have such a ‘jewel’ here in Southport but it is not recognised as such, due to being left totally neglected.

Our ‘jewel’ is the Marine Lake, gardens and surrounding area. If viewed in the early morning or on a beautiful evening when the sun is setting it looks magical, one doesn’t notice the piles of rubbish and debris, overgrown shrubs, broken lights and railings, beautiful Victorian shelters left to rot and everywhere much in need of repair, cleaning and painting.

In these times of thrift, Sefton Council need to put into practice the old saying ‘make do and mend’. When was the last time one of our councillors had a walk around the lake and observed the neglect for themselves? A day trip to Llandudno might show them how other towns care for what is precious.

Let’s look after the really good things we have here in our town, repair and maintain them and let Southport really have a ‘jewel’ in her crown.

MRS LJ WINROW

Belmont Street, Southport

Flak for track

I HAVE walked daily in the sand hills and Ainsdale pinewoods for 30 years and would like to add my voice to the many others who oppose this appalling scheme for a cycle track.

I do not agree with the management of the sand hills and pinewoods by Sefton Council and the government quango that is Natural England.

The frontal dunes have been stripped of all flora and fauna. I fear that they would like to do the same to the areas between the golf courses and want more money to send in the chainsaws.

Natural England is whittling away the pinewoods with no apparent management plan other than to fell trees and sell the wood. Now they want to desecrate the dunes with a cycle track.

In my opinion this is a misguided scheme by councillors who are desperate to take this money and I fear that as they have already started the track in Birkdale, it is a done deal.

Every day a little bit more of the natural environment is destroyed.

Trees are felled, gardens are paved over and areas of natural habitat are removed from our towns as they are over developed.

It is only those who cannot see beyond their own personal enjoyment that support it and those councillors who are so keen to take this money just for the sake of having and spending it need to wake up to reality.

Tell Cycling England that we do not want their money.

JOANNE HALL,

Haig Ave, Southport

Safer way

ON MONDAY, October 11, I was driving towards Liverpool on the Formby Bypass at about eight in the evening, some four hours after a tragic accident.

As I negotiated the southern roundabout I was confronted by a police car blocking the Liverpool-bound carriageway, between the car and the roundabout there was a police officer with a death wish because it was impossible to see him until one reached the south side of the roundabout due to dangerous overgrown trees destroying motorists’ lines of sight.

The only way to Liverpool from that roundabout is to retrace one’s journey to the traffic lights by the supermarket and then take the road to Haskayne.

It would have been much safer for the officer if the police had closed the carriageway at those lights where the police clsoure could have been seen easily because it was not hidden behind the roundabout foliage.

As there have been several accidents on this stretch of road one would have expected the police to have analysed the problem.

They could have set up a diversion at the lights and a second one at the roundabout directing Formby cars to Haskayne.

JB LEECH,

Lancaster Road, Southport

Need info

I AM trying to research my relatives from the Southport and North Meols area.

I seem to have hit a brick wall in my research on my great grandfather and great uncle and was wondering if your readers could help fill in some gaps.

My great grandfather was Frederick Henry Owen. He used to run a stall on Southport Market called ‘F Owen Cheese Factor’ with his wife Annie Owen, nee Fielden. They had two daughters who are still living, my grandmother and her sister, my great aunt.

The only information I have so far is that Frederick’s family also used to run a cheese or dairy shop near or on Eastbank Street Bridge and that Frederick had been married prior to my great grandmother and had a son from that marriage called Billy.

I don’t know if he was known as ‘William’ or ‘Billy’.

My grandmother’s only memory of contact with her half brother was at Frederick’s funeral in late 1946, after his death at age 70 in Southport.

At that time, Billy would have been in his late teens or early twenties, my grandmother at that time was barely 10 years old.

I would appreciate it if anyone has any further information that may help me shed some light on who my great grandfather was, or his son Billy could enlighten me to this side of our family as sadly, my great grandmother Annie passed away in the mid 1970’s so we have very little information to go on.

SHELLEY

sj_tyson@yahoo.co.uk
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