Council believed Banbury's Castle Quay 'bluff' and took on 'toxic' asset - Letters to the Editor

My comments during full council last week about an £87 million loss in value and ongoing financial pressures from Castle Quay earned me some indignant comments from Cllrs Andrew Beere (Lab) and Barry Wood (Con), who accused me of being ‘anti-Banbury’.

Nothing could be further from the truth. As a champion of independent retail, I’m very much in favour of Banbury’s independent quarter, support for which has always been sadly lacking from the council.

I’ve never objected to the waterfront regeneration in principle, although its viability remains to be seen. But it shouldn’t have been an end in itself, requiring the risking of an additional £80m of taxpayers’ money to buy the shopping centre first.

Instead, it could have been a joint venture and a shared liability between the previous owners and the council.

Anyone with an ounce of business acumen could have seen that claims from the operators that they would close the mall and let the town centre die were transparent bargaining ploys. Doing so would have cost them millions, not least in buying out leaseholders.

But if the council really believed their bluff, it begs the question why they paid so hefty a price rather than agreeing a peppercorn sum to take on such an apparently toxic asset.

I’m not anti-Banbury, but I am anti a commercially incompetent Conservative administration who may have put services for all residents, including those in Banbury, at risk by saddling us with a foolhardy investment that we may all eventually have to pay the price for.

Cllr Ian Middleton, Green Party, deputy leader, official Lib Dem/Green/Independent opposition, Cherwell District Council

Transport

I was interested to read Neil Iden’s response (28 Feb) to my earlier letter about the Zimbl shared electric car service which recently started in Banbury. I suspect that Neil and I agree about more than we disagree.

Absolutely, we need to travel less where we can, develop better public transport and a cycling and walking infrastructure in Banbury that will make the town a safer, healthier and nicer place to be. (The recently published Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan is a helpful start).

I think we could agree that, where we can’t cycle, walk or use the bus, we should use clean, quiet vehicles that are shared between us and used to their maximum rather than parked, clogging up our streets.

As Neil Iden says, electric vehicles are not pollution-free, but all the evidence (and there’s a lot) points to the fact that they’re a great deal better than the fossil-fuelled vehicles they replace.

Until we’re able to live in a low travel cycling, walking and public transport nirvana, I think we should embrace and encourage positive technology changes – like electric cars – and innovative attempts to introduce them, like Zimbl’s.

Neil Wallis, Banbury

Small boats

So the Conservatives are going to solve the problem of flimsy boats of would-be refugees crossing the Channel. I’ve lost count of the number of failed attempts by recent Tory Governments to deal with this humanitarian issue.

Telling the French to keep them, pushing the flimsy boats back out to sea, flying people at great expense to Rwanda have all failed.

The only answer is a safe way for migrants to apply to settle here, speedy decisions on whether somebody is a refugee and investment to create jobs in countries like Albania. Everything else is a costly and unworkable gimmick.

John Tanner, Former Lord Mayor of Oxford