Hard to see where town centre square will be
Christmas is well and truly over and town centre residents are once again enduring daily construction noise and disruption.
The concrete structures fronting Park Street and St Ives Road rise ever taller into the sky. However, in the midst of these new buildings will be the new attractive town centre focal point and square, which we have been promised.
It is a little difficult at present to see exactly where it will be, but I am sure all will be revealed
Perhaps former council leader Simon Dudley could perform the opening ceremony.
JON FOSTER Fotherby Court
Maidenhead
Maidenhead Advertiser Christmas Cracker Appeal; Waitrose Maidenhead Community Matters at Christmas; The Cherry Pickers (formerly Kaffirs) of Cookham Dean; The Lions Club of Maidenhead; The Rotary Club of Maidenhead Thames; The Fabulous Shirtlifters; and The Tuesday Singers.
We thank them all very warmly for their support.
Special thanks goes to Linda Pittick and her food preparation team in the kitchen, backed up by the chefs at Cardinal Clinic; Alyson Kelly and her setting up team; Keith Cartland our guest and transport coordinator; Mina Jobanputra and Steve Walsh who organised our volunteers; Joanna Marlow for the guests’ gift bags; Lily Peacock and Winnie Prior who ran the volunteer database; and Andrew Fleet who did a great deal to promote the event.
It is thanks to them that the event was successful and everything ran smoothly.
Many thanks to SportsAble for the use of their facilities and the wonderful support from the staff, to Copas Farms for donating their award winning turkeys, to Peter and Gemma Higley together with flautist Trudy Wiseman for providing superb live entertainment, to Roger Neal for brilliant audio visual presentation with support from Ross Kelly, to People to Places for the use of their buses, and to all the drivers who helped to bring the guests to the event and return them safely afterwards.
We were delighted to welcome Theresa May MP and her husband Philip to our event. Mrs May attends every year and she spoke personally with many of the guests.
She gave an address before lunch thanking the volunteers and emphasising the value of being together and of giving and sharing.
Reverend David Downing, chairman of Churches Together in Maidenhead, welcomed the guests, congratulated the volunteers, and said the Grace before lunch.
The guests and volunteers appreciated the time our VIPs spent with them and a lot of selfies were taken!
We were delighted to see numerous priests from the local churches supporting us on the day.
This year’s event was a great success and the weather was unusually warm. We very much enjoyed spoiling the guests and there was a lovely relaxed and happy atmosphere.
We would like to pay tribute to all the other charitable organisations and their volunteers who also do so much good work in the local community at Christmas and throughout the year.
TONY WEEKS Leader of the Christmas lunch organising team for Churches Together in Maidenhead
days. Job done.
Is it surprising that instead of spending time, effort and money to go to look at goods that we want to purchase, we sit at home and a few clicks later, our problem is solved? I still do most of our grocery shopping in stores locally, but obviously larger items need to be delivered.
Stores have to do their part in welcoming shoppers and making the shopping chore as easy and quick as possible.
Mrs JOYCE BANKS Silvertrees Drive
Maidenhead
for us, and going back to 1956 before we joined the Common Market the UK economy has grown naturally by an average of 2.5 per cent a year so even if we did lose all that two per cent or less, which we certainly would not, we would in any case make it up in less than one average year.”
But even now, three and half years later, apparently it is still the case that many people have not yet understood that the overall economic impact of EU membership has always been marginal, and probably marginally negative rather than marginally positive, and it really will make very little long term difference whether or not we agree a new special trade deal to replace the present Single Market arrangements.
And if anyone questions how this can possibly be the case when opponents of Brexit routinely talk about ‘the cliff edge’ and ‘the economic disaster of no deal’, and so on, I suggest that they ask the German Ifo Institute for Economic Research about their advice provided to the German government in June 2017.
According to which advice it could perhaps cost the UK a mere 1.1 per cent of GDP to leave the EU on World Trade Organisation terms, rather than with a comprehensive free trade deal.
Dr D R COOPER Belmont Park Avenue
Maidenhead